Darfield Quake Report Released - Cheapest Options To Be Taken

 
The much waited for report into the 4 Sept Canterbury Quake has been released and not all remediation and protection work will be provided for by the Earthquake Commission’s insurance cover.

Of the 16,630 properties that were inspected, 6855 suffered land damage.
According to a report in The Press newspaper :

The report identifies three areas where the damage was worst:
* Riverside areas, particularly the inside and on some outside of bends. Areas include Avondale, Avonside, Burwood, Dallington, Kaiapoi, and parts of Fendalton, Halswell and St Martins.
* River delta areas. Areas include Bexley, Brooklands, Kairaki, Pines Beach, and Spencerville.
* Inland loose alluvial deposit areas. Areas include parts of the suburbs of Belfast, Casebrook, Fendalton, Halswell, Hoon Hay, Parklands and St Albans.
Options to remediate the worst-effected land in Canterbury following the earthquake will likely focus on the cheapest and least disruptive methods, the first geotech report shows.
Prepared by engineering firm Tonkin and Taylor, the report was couriered to the 1200 worst effected homeowners yesterday…
…The report says Tonkin and Taylor has been instructed by central and local government to work on rebuilding with no ground treatment and treating the perimeter of the worst affected areas..read the full report Here

A Press conference is being held to discuss the report.

But where is the report?
The report may be found on the EQC’s website. The Earthquake Commission has said in a letter to residents that

..Tonkin & Taylor have presented some proposals for land repair and protection which go beyond the scope of Earthquake Commission insurance cover. The Government is committed to providing funding for this additional work to give greater protection to your property should a similar earthquake happen in the future…

But as we know, “committed to providing funding” is very different from “will meet the full costs,” it will be interesting to see how much actually gets paid out for this “additional” work.

A copy of Stage 1 of the Darfield Earthquake Geotechnical Land Damage & Reinstatement Report may be found HERE.

Problems Between the EQC and Insurance Companies
Contributors to Trademe’s forum are already talking about alleged squabbles that have broken out between insurers and the EQC:

“According to the guy I spoke to, both parties are behaving as badly as each other. It just confirms how they are failing to work together. Remember the public meetings where Chris Ryan said there was no shortage of funds due to being internationally insured and nobody would be disadvantaged and the EQC and Insurers would work together.
This is about to get even uglier than it already is.”

One poster has advised residents to organise themselves before it’s too late:

“Those people with land issues really need to organise themselves together and get some legal representation ASAP. You are all too vulnerable independently, and it is too much to expect that EQC and insurance are going to be working together in your best interests. Just my 2 cents worth.”

For all posts about the Canterbury Quakes click HERE
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Christchurch Curfew, Aftershocks - Update

A curfew will be in place in central Christchurch and Kaiapoi from 7pm today until 7am tomorrow to control looting and civil unrest, the central area will also be cordoned off.

Power is slowly being restored to the city, sparking off a number of fires in buildings damaged in the 7.1 quake.

The two major concerns facing emergency teams and residents are damage to underground services (water supplies and sewerage infrastructure) which may take weeks to repair and hazardous buildings weakened by the quake which have yet to be assessed or made safe.

Around 20 aftershocks have been felt since the initial quake. Residents are advised to boil all drinking water for 3 minutes.

Casualties in the disaster have been mercifully light, due mostly to the timing of the quake that occurred whilst most people were still asleep.

A reporter on Sky News said that people were unprepared for the quake and had no emergency plans in place or disaster provisions, many supermarkets have been subject to panic buying with two hour long queues at one store.

Earlier damage estimates have been revised and are now estimated to amount to 2 billion NZ dollars. Some buildings have been reported to have sunk into the ground by about a metre, probably due to liquefaction of the ground and sand volcanoes (see photo above for an example) have appeared in some places.

Liquefaction maps for Christchurch may be found HERE dated October 2004.The city's Civil Defence Emergency Management Arrangements may also be found on that link.

Christchurch is zoned into three areas for liquefaction - high in red, moderate in yellow and low in green. Much of the central and eastern part of the city is coloured red.

Aftershocks
Aftershocks have been going on most of the day, most recently (source):
* 7:03 pm  Magnitude: 4.6,  Depth: 20 km,  10 km west of Christchurch
* 6:54 pm  Magnitude: 4.3, Depth: 12 km,  10 km south-west of Christchurch
* 6:38 pm Magnitude: 3.8,   Depth: 12 km,  20 km south-east of Darfield
* 6:35 pm  Magnitude: 3.8,  Depth: 5 km,  20 km south-east of Darfield
*  5:07 pm Magnitude: 3.7,  Depth: 10 km, 20 km west of Christchurch
*4:55 pm Magnitude: 5.4,  Depth: 10 km, 10 km south-west of Darfield
* 4:48 pm  Magnitude: 4.3,  Depth: 15 km, 20 km south-west of Christchurch

Update:
Extra police have been drafted in to provide protection in Christchurch as night falls, according to Stuff.co.nz more than 80 officers have been brought into the city and the mayor has asked the army to also provide assistance, more here.

One British resident in Christchurch has just written this on an expats site:

Was woken up at 4.35 due to the violence of the quake, and have to say its the most frightened I've ever been in my life. The house was rocking incredibly, so much so that I'm still amazed its still standing, yet I had little damage apart from smashed crockery and ornaments and the living room looking like we'd been burgled.
The rest of the city hasnt been so lucky, with considerable damage elsewhere. The chinese take away across from me has lost a wall, as has a restaurant further down the road.
Some of the roads in the area have been badly damaged, and wont be passable for days or weeks, and from what I understand the river rose over its banks in some areas to.
The CBD is no-go area, with a curfew and state of emergency in force, and just to kick us when we're down its forecast 130kmh winds and torrential rain, which I'd imagine could compromise some of the precarious buildings around the city.
We're getting constant tremors, and have just had one while I've been typing, and the experts seem to think one of them is likely to hit a magnitude of 6 before we're done.
On a slightly more light hearted note I think I need to brush up my emergency management skills. In my (wine hangover affected) early morning panic I remembered the need to get out of the house and to take something to keep warm and some food, only to come to my senses sat in my car with a pillow case and a jar of gherkins.

Other posts about the quake
Christchurch New Zealand Quake Gets its own Wikipedia Page
Photos of the Christchurch Earthquake
New Zealand in Shock After Massive Quake - reports from the public about how the quake affected them

Massive Earthquake in Christchurch, State of Civil Emergency Declared

 Today's posts - click here