Christchurch had a terrible earthquake in February of 2011. It measured 6.3, killed 185 people, and destroyed thousands of buildings. The city is definitely still recovering. It's actually pretty sad to walk around the downtown area. Rubble, broken windows, scaffolding, and empty buildings make up the bulk of what you see. We had consulted a guidebook published in 2010 for some restaurant recommendations before coming; none of the places once listed exist anymore. I took some pictures to give you an idea of the destruction, nearly a year after the disaster...
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| This church is across from the Botanic Gardens I showed in yesterday's post. |
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| But there's still some Christmas spirit in this town! |
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| And the people of Christchurch have some spirit too! |
From walking and driving around the town, you can see how it was once a beautiful place. Hopefully it can recover from the earthquake and build itself back up again.
Orange traffic cones are universal. Were any roads buckled or did those get fixed already?
ReplyDeleteYeah, it looks like some roads were damaged, though I didn't see any when I was there. Some road surfaces were apparently forced up by liquefaction. You should know what that is Mr. Engineer.
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