I did wonder about writing about the earthquake (sorry, ‘aftershock’) in Christchurch again, after all there is such a thing as having too much of a bad thing. My thought was yes and no. ‘Yes’ I could write about it and ‘no’ I didn’t have any other ideas.
First though the term aftershock, there has been a lot of confusion around this. An aftershock is when the ground moves suddenly and can crack and destroy houses and kill people, while an earthquake has quite different insurance liabilities.
The term ‘safe as houses’ is mocking as the idea of terra firma and things we can rely on have vanished.
And in the new environment strange surreal things have happened. I’ve spent my life avoiding discussion of body functions and would have even recently been voted least likely to have 400 toilets in my garage. Rangiora Earthquake Express; a fantastic volunteer group, have changed all that and made 6,000 chemical toilets to give away. I’m hoping at the next election I can vote them in to replace the local Councils. They make sure things get done, literally.
More importantly every person you meet wants to talk and you swap stories and experiences. People know their neighbours.
The question for Christchurch is what does the future hold?
The issue is certainty in an increasingly uncertain world. Seismologists can’t tell us when there’ll be more shakes or their size. My cat can at least give an hours’ notice. Science knows more about missile guidance systems than earthquakes.
To moon someone is to bare your naked bottom at them, and metaphorically that is exactly what Moon Man John Ring is doing to sell his almanacs. He may turn Christchurch into a deserted ghost town on 20 March and I’ll eat my liquifaction if he’s right, but residents aren’t taking any chances.
It’s so bad that newspaper astrologers could have a resurgence in trustworthiness surveys.
Current debate is what the future holds. Part of Christchurch has gone forever though this isn’t new. Among many architectural ‘fails’, Kiddey’s Toy Shop in the central city, a single level wooden trove, was destroyed for an eight storey faux mirror glass building in the 1980s that was a mere outhouse in Dallas terms and with all the soul of JR Ewing.
Much of the city has been run down for years, usually by media reports only covering crime. The rebuild is still on many drawing boards.
Much of the city has had tired empty old buildings for a long time, and a variety of competing styles. Seismologists could consider swapping disciplines, they might be able to more accurately predict what new Christchurch will look like.
The reality is things have changed. Any rebuild, mothballed suburbs, whatever size and timing, there will very likely be earthquakes in future. The thing is though people have come together. Messages of support are still coming through and Christchurch is full of volunteers from up and down New Zealand. We know now what the ground can do and in the ring of fire we know that whatever happens, New Zealand rocks.
This is the second piece I wrote following the 22 Feb 6.3 quake that hit Christchurch. Since i didn't have power for 10 days it took a long time to get anything down at all.
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