Showing posts with label natural disasters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label natural disasters. Show all posts

Saturday, February 13, 2016

Shaken


In February 2011, Christchurch was struck by an earthquake that registered a 6.3 on the Richter scale. Centered just 10 kilometers outside the city center, the earthquake and its aftershocks left the city badly damaged, with 185 dead. At the time, Christchurch was the second most populous city in New Zealand.


Visiting Win’s family friend in 2016, it was amazing to see the CBD (Kiwi for central business district) still full of empty lots. Patched here and there with intense construction, efforts to save historic buildings, and invisible bureaucratic red tape, the city is still in partial disarray five years later. Outside the city center, many suburbs were completely red-zoned, with vast acres that were once filled with cookie-cutter subdivisions being gradually reclaimed by flora and fauna.



And in the midst of it all, endless examples of the triumph of the human spirit and the artistic response to tragedy are on display. From the transitionary church (known as the Cardboard Church) to the pop-up shipping container mall to the sprawling street art, Christchurch has equal parts physical and emotion construction underway.