Tag Archives: earthquake

James McDonald’s Bright Star Shows No Sign of Dimming

James McDonald’s Bright Star Shows No Sign of Dimming

Being so good so young won’t count against James McDonald, 23, according to Craig “Clocker” Tompson, a guiding light behind the meteoric Australian rise of the talented New Zealander. Some jockeys are exceptional early but…

Christchurch Cardboard Cathedral Opens

Christchurch Cardboard Cathedral Opens

Christchurch’s ‘cardboard’ cathedral has opened, a move that is seen as a significant step in the regeneration of the city following the February 2011 earthquake that killed 185 people.  Dubbed the ‘Transitional Cathedral’, the…

Wellington CBD Closes Following Magnitude 6.5 Quake

Wellington CBD Closes Following Magnitude 6.5 Quake

Much of Wellington’s CBD was closed on Monday as engineers assessed building for structural damage following a magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck on Sunday evening. While the New Zealand Parliament building and Beehive did sustain…

Pupils Staying Strong

Pupils Staying Strong

Students from Fendalton Open-Air School in Christchurch are the first group members — calling themselves Faultline Fiction — of the Guardian site to vividly recount what happened when earthquakes struck their city, changing their…

Documenting Recovery

Documenting Recovery

While an exchange student in New Zealand, American Peter Hoffman, 27, discovered his passion for photography, and for the country. This year, Hoffman plans to return to Christchurch, where in February this year an…

Deconsecrating Deconstruction

Deconsecrating Deconstruction

Christchurch’s most famous landmark, the 19th-century ChristChurch Cathedral, is to be deconsecrated and partially demolished after February’s devastating 6.3 magnitude earthquake toppled the steeple. Church and government representatives have announced that sections of the…

Christchurch’s Cardboard Cathedral

Christchurch’s Cardboard Cathedral

The quake-ravaged Christ Church Cathedral is set to be rebuilt – using cardboard. Since the destruction of the iconic building in February’s deadly earthquake, rebuilding the Cathedral has been deemed a priority for the…

Welcome to Limboland

Welcome to Limboland

“The once bustling central business district resembles a wasteland,” Jonathan Hutchison reports for The New York Times. “Office furniture can be seen sitting inside partially collapsed buildings. Piles of bricks and steel lie along…

Royal Visit Lifts City’s Spirits

Royal Visit Lifts City’s Spirits

The scale of damage caused to Christchurch by last month’s earthquake is “unbelievable” said Prince William when he visited the city at the start of a tour of New Zealand. The prince walked through…

Fabled Serenity Endures

Fabled Serenity Endures

Despite the tragedy of February’s catastrophic earthquake, New Zealand still delivers sublime travel experiences, writes Chris Leadbeater for The Independent. “Since 1884 has played a role as a lone token of man’s…

Bottled Mysteries

Bottled Mysteries

During the February 22 earthquake which struck Christchurch, the bronze statue of the city founder, John Robert Godley toppled to the ground. The discovery under Godley’s plinth of two time capsules, one made of…

Travel to New Zealand

Travel to New Zealand

“I’ve always liked Phil Keoghan as host of The Amazing Race,” Orlando Sentinel television reviewer Hal Boedeker professes. “I didn’t realize he was from New Zealand, but there he was on The Late Late…

Mysteries Remain

Mysteries Remain

“Days after the quake, a friend returns home to the eeriness of a place that’s undergone incredible violence,” author Emily Perkins writes for an article in the Guardian. “Everything is upended, on its side,…

Unflagging Optimist

Unflagging Optimist

Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker has been there in front of the news cameras almost from the moment the deadly earthquake struck the tourist city of Christchurch. At 57, Parker is Christchurch’s Earthquake Mayor. It’s…

Sense of Community

Sense of Community

The White House deployed disaster-response and urban-search-and-rescue teams to Christchurch following the 6.3-magnitude earthquake that rocked the city on February 22. They were greeted there by Timothy Manning, a deputy administrator at the US…

Looking at Tectonics

Looking at Tectonics

The devastating earthquake that tore through Christchurch on the afternoon of February 22 is the product of a new fault line in the Earth’s crust — an offshoot from the Alpine fault — that…

In The Press Building

In The Press Building

“I was on the phone to a man whose earthquake-damaged home burned down in Pines Beach when the earthquake hit,” eyewitness Nicole Mathewson writes for The Sydney Morning Herald. “At first I thought it…

Glacier Collapses

Glacier Collapses

A huge vertical slab calved off the front of New Zealand’s longest glacier, the Tasman Glacier, into Tasman Lake after the 6.3-magnitude quake hit Christchurch on 22 February. The chunk is estimated to have…

Google Responds

Google Responds

New Zealand-born Google executive Craig Nevill-Manning, who lives in Tribeca, New York, has been using his high-tech skills to help anxious relatives locate loved ones in earthquake-ravaged Christchurch. Nevill-Manning first created the Google Crisis…

Our Darkest Day

Our Darkest Day

Christchurch has been struck by yet another devastating earthquake, this time with scores of casualties, after a 6.3-magnitude shock struck just before 1pm during a busy lunchtime on Tuesday 22 February. The official death…

Goal Overshadowed

Goal Overshadowed

West Ham defender Auckland-born Winston Reid has spoken of his sadness at the deadly earthquake that rocked Christchurch hours after the Hammers had booked their place in the last eight of the FA Cup…

World Transformed

World Transformed

Author David Haywood describes the earthquake that destroyed his home and killed scores of New Zealanders in an eyewitness account for the Guardian. “The first jolt knocked me off my feet. A desktop computer…

Enduring Friendship

Enduring Friendship

New Zealand has the “enduring friendship and support of many partners around the world,” President Obama said in a White House statement. Obama offered his “deepest condolences” to the people of New Zealand and…

Fletchers rebuild city

Fletchers rebuild city

Though a regional disaster for most, the 7.1 earthquake which hit Christchurch in September will generate some serious business for New Zealand’s largest construction group Fletchers. While acknowledging the tragedy of the earthquake, investors…

Participant in History

Participant in History

“I am in the midst of a living, pictorial history as it is being etched into our nation’s collective memory and into the core of this unstable but stunning landscape of Canterbury,” Jacqueline Monkman…