Lynn Campbell: When a City Falls – the Christchurch Earthquakes 2010 and 2011

Campbell Conservation, Christchurch, New Zealand

At 5:43 on Saturday 4th September 2010, the Canterbury district in New Zealand was shaken by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake. The epicentre was located 40 kilometres west of Christchurch and had a focal depth of 10 km, causing widespread damage which affected the whole of the
South Island. No one died during this earthquake, but the buildings were severely damaged. On 26th December, there was another big aftershock but again with no loss of life. However, on 22nd February at 12:55 pm, there was a 6.3 magnitude aftershock centred near the Port of Lyttelton that devastated central Christchurch and killed 182 people, most in the central city district in relatively modern buildings. The severity of this quake was caused by the fact that its focal depth was only 5 km deep. It was the shallowness of the shake that caused the major wide-scale destruction. What was unexpected and caused major consternation among the gallery staff was that the Christchurch Art Gallery was third in line to be a Civil Defence hub should a disaster like this happen. This fact had never been communicated to the gallery staff. On arriving at the Gallery at 5:30 am to assess the impact on the collections and exhibitions,
in September, it was with great confusion to find thousands of Civil Defence staff taking over the Gallery, including the exhibition spaces. New Zealand is known as “the shaky isles” because minor tremors are not uncommon. This unknown fault came as a complete surprise to earthquake experts around the country and overseas. Although the epicentre was in Lyttelton, the energy waves travelled along the mountain range, causing the most damage to the areas in the central business district. The amount of damage was dependent on the type of ground
upon which the buildings were sitting. Soils such as sand or reclaimed land caused much more displacement. Liquefaction was a significant issue and occurred where there were water, sand and silt present. As Christchurch had many underground aquifers, copious liquefaction was extremely widespread across the city. Having formed the Canterbury Disaster Salvage Team in 1987 and producing annual workshops, and stressing the importance of preparation and awareness of possible threats to collections, it was horrifying to discover how ill-prepared, particularly the cultural institutions were despite regular training. After participating in many salvage operations during this time, it became apparent that it was because they had little time or money to develop their training or plans. For cultural heritage professionals in New Zealand, this event has proved to be a salutary lesson on what to expect should the very worst happen. Future disaster planning should take into account not just the normal disaster scenarios but also the ones that may not be immediately apparent, such as a museum being taken over by Civil Defence teams and government granting extended powers that have a severe impact on the safety of cultural heritage collections - such as happened to the art galleries and many public libraries in Canterbury.Lynn Campbell: When a City Falls – the Christchurch Earthquakes 2010 and 2011 Campbell Conservation, Christchurch, New Zealand.
At 5:43 on Saturday 4th September 2010, the Canterbury district in New Zealand was shaken by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake. The epicentre was located 40 kilometres west of Christchurch and had a focal depth of 10 km, causing widespread damage which affected the whole of the
South Island. No one died during this earthquake, but the buildings were severely damaged. On 26th December, there was another big aftershock but again with no loss of life. However, on 22nd February at 12:55 pm, there was a 6.3 magnitude aftershock centred near the Port of Lyttelton that devastated central Christchurch and killed 182 people, most in the central city district in relatively modern buildings. The severity of this quake was caused by the fact that its focal depth was only 5 km deep. It was the shallowness of the shake that caused the major wide-scale destruction. What was unexpected and caused major consternation among the gallery staff was that the Christchurch Art Gallery was third in line to be a Civil Defence hub should a disaster like this happen. This fact had never been communicated to the gallery staff. On arriving at the Gallery at 5:30 am to assess the impact on the collections and exhibitions, in September, it was with great confusion to find thousands of Civil Defence staff taking over the Gallery, including the exhibition spaces. New Zealand is known as “the shaky isles” because minor tremors are not uncommon. This unknown fault came as a complete surprise to earthquake experts around the country and overseas.

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