One Year On
One year on from the February 22nd, 2011 earthquake in Christchurch, Deborah reflects on the impact of the quakes and the ongoing aftershocks, in an excerpt from a new journal in progress.
19 February
In three days time we will remember the February 22nd earthquake. But already the anniversary is on my mind, provoked today by a column in the Sunday paper by a journalist who writes regular pieces of a controversial and inflammatory nature. Her style belongs to the new brand of journalism – provocative, outspoken, confessional begging a reaction and a readership – and a new breed of woman, benefitting from the ‘70s feminist activism, who is every bit as bold and brash as her male colleagues and perhaps more strident.
The first anniversary of the earthquake that killed 185 people and destroyed a city, is a time to remember and honour those who died, the rescue workers who risked their lives to save people trapped in fallen buildings and the medical teams who worked to revive and restore the seriously injured. It is a time to reach out and offer support and love to each and every citizen of Christchurch who has been trying to process the trauma and maintain a life while living with the unpredictability of aftershocks.
This journalist, invited by the editor to reflect on the subject, chose to examine her apathy towards Christchurch, thinking she might be speaking for many but at the same time aware she might ‘not win myself any friends here.’ She blundered on regardless explaining that she hadn’t visited Christchurch since the quakes and that it was ‘not a city I have ever had strong feelings about one way or another.’ She remembered falling in the Avon River when she was five and ‘lusting after the period homes bordering Hagley Park when she was 35.’
Imagining she was correctly gauging the public mood she continued,
I suspect my apathy in regards to Christchurch is more widespread than most admit. One year on, newspapers now hesitate to put it on the front page. Unless you are a Cantabrian, and even then maybe you have tired of the subject, living day in, day out, with the aftermath of a natural disaster. Christchurch simply doesn’t sell. And while undoubtedly Christchurch is the loser here, I guess I figure, and perhaps wrongly, that this is still the land of milk and honey. Trim milk anyway.
Regarding the 185 deaths, she reasoned, ‘Perhaps I suffer from the opposite of that particular western affliction, in which one dead local equals 437 dead foreigners.’
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I read her words ‘…one dead local equals 437 dead foreigners’ and feel dismayed. Every life is precious. I read ‘Christchurch simply doesn’t sell,’ and think Christchurch didn’t ask for an earthquake and Christchurch certainly didn’t ask to be the subject of constant media scrutiny. Canterbury has been the victim of a random act of nature, one that couldn’t be foreseen. Its future cannot be predicted. The only certainty, according to the seismologists, is that there will be more aftershocks and quakes and this activity could go on for decades. Why then would you knock the city and its people, knowing this?
I am so upset by the column; I’m sending a letter to the editor for the first time in my life. |
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February 22nd
I have had a candle burning all day, on the dining table next to a glass vase of five star-shaped ruby pink Echinacea flower heads and a pottery vase of purple old-fashioned geraniums. It burns steadily to remember those who died and those who continue to endure the devastation.
One year on, this is how life is now for the people I know in Christchurch.
The shakes are endless. They roar underground, rattle the windows, knock things flying, slosh the water in the glasses on the table, tip people over. Many individuals in this unsteady city have difficulty sleeping and some need pills to get them through the night so they can work the next day and face the ongoing round of inconveniences and obstacles. Some suffer panic attacks. Even the most steadfast and stoical are struggling.
I have had a candle burning all day, on the dining table next to a glass vase of five star-shaped ruby pink Echinacea flower heads and a pottery vase of purple old-fashioned geraniums. It burns steadily to remember those who died and those who continue to endure the devastation.
One year on, this is how life is now for the people I know in Christchurch.
The shakes are endless. They roar underground, rattle the windows, knock things flying, slosh the water in the glasses on the table, tip people over. Many individuals in this unsteady city have difficulty sleeping and some need pills to get them through the night so they can work the next day and face the ongoing round of inconveniences and obstacles. Some suffer panic attacks. Even the most steadfast and stoical are struggling.
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Many of my friends and relatives are living as best they can in smashed up, tilting houses zoned for destruction. Some consider moving to another city, others have already left, while others have lost their jobs. Everyone is tired. Everyone is struggling. Everyone has had enough.
Visitors to the city centre will inevitably end up at the brave little pop-up mall, with its brightly coloured shipping container shops. The mood in this street is sombre despite the vibrant plots of lavender and dwarf sunflowers and the hanging baskets, the banners on street poles and the great efforts of the buskers on their violins and guitars. It was Christmas when I visited and I found the quiet disturbing. You could hear people’s footfall. |
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At the end of the mall you reach the mesh fences that surround an eerie, broken, dusty, city centre strewn with fallen masonry. Looking down Colombo Street towards the Cathedral is disorienting. It isn’t there anymore. A leafy plane tree in the foreground hides what little remains. The spire that spelt Christchurch fell down on February 22nd.
By the Avon, in the red zone, there is rampant, weedy growth replacing once grassy, clipped banks. Amongst this dereliction the ‘Our City’ building, formerly the Chamber of Commerce (1887) and a magnificent interpretation of the Queen Anne style by Samuel Hearst Seager is propped up and seriously damaged. One of the beautiful terracotta statues representing ‘Industry’ and designed by British sculptor George Frampton has lost her head. |
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Looking up Worcester Street from this position there is a blank where the cathedral should be. But to our surprise a tall crane had been positioned there. And hovering magically up high on the red arm, I spied a huge gilt angel that used to hang in the Cathedral for Christmas. The sight was both uplifting and heartbreaking.
And what of the buildings I wrote about all those years ago? People say CERA (Christchurch Earthquake Recovery Authority) have destroyed more heritage buildings than the earthquake. I wonder who is leading this ominous path of ruination. Is anyone suggesting caution? Is anyone pleading, ‘Wait, pause, consult, think this through’ before another historic building, that could be strengthened and retained, is swept away? |
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Tell me why not one person in a position of power - Roger Sutton, Gerry Brownlee, John Key, Bob Parker - is championing this critical issue. But then Gerry Brownlee, referring to the heritage buildings, said he wanted to ‘get the old dungers down.’ I wonder is anyone listening to architect Ian Athfield who has been appointed to represent the aesthetic re-building of the city? Do they speak to Miles Warren about his Christchurch Town Hall, the finest, most forward looking example of modernist public architecture in the country and gather his ideas on what can be done? There is talk it will be demolished. What about the fountains and the huge brass and glass Danish light fittings and the carved screens, and the Pat Hanly mural of dancing figures in light and the scarlet leather banquettes that sat on the marble floors in the foyer? Have they been rescued? Are they safe?
Is anyone entreating the authorities to please hold onto ruins, facades, archways, fragments, so that the memories these buildings store and the history they encapsulate are not erased forever. When you stop and study a heritage building you become aware of the craft and the dedication that went into the construction one hundred and more years ago. Each weighty piece of stone lifted, by human hand, and secured in place, each piece of ornamentation carved into classical shapes by a talented craftsman while in the background women fed and clothed and sustained those labourers. Is Christchurch to lose all echoes of the past?
There are inspirational examples worldwide that demonstrate the range of possibilities. In Berlin the ruins of the Kaiser Wilhelm church, referred to as ‘the broken tooth church,’ because the tower was chipped like a tooth in bombing raids in World War 11, were strengthened and retained alongside the new church. The Brandenburg Gate that divided the East from the West still stands beside a peace memorial chapel, symbols of the past incorporated into the fabric of the new, lest we forget. Closer to home, there is the example of the rebuilding of Darwin, after Cyclone Tracy. There they retained a 19th century porch and incorporated it into the new Cathedral with its soaring, tornado proofed roof and they kept the arched doorways of the old town hall that now lead to a shallow brick amphitheatre used for outdoor speeches, rallies and theatre.
Is anyone entreating the authorities to please hold onto ruins, facades, archways, fragments, so that the memories these buildings store and the history they encapsulate are not erased forever. When you stop and study a heritage building you become aware of the craft and the dedication that went into the construction one hundred and more years ago. Each weighty piece of stone lifted, by human hand, and secured in place, each piece of ornamentation carved into classical shapes by a talented craftsman while in the background women fed and clothed and sustained those labourers. Is Christchurch to lose all echoes of the past?
There are inspirational examples worldwide that demonstrate the range of possibilities. In Berlin the ruins of the Kaiser Wilhelm church, referred to as ‘the broken tooth church,’ because the tower was chipped like a tooth in bombing raids in World War 11, were strengthened and retained alongside the new church. The Brandenburg Gate that divided the East from the West still stands beside a peace memorial chapel, symbols of the past incorporated into the fabric of the new, lest we forget. Closer to home, there is the example of the rebuilding of Darwin, after Cyclone Tracy. There they retained a 19th century porch and incorporated it into the new Cathedral with its soaring, tornado proofed roof and they kept the arched doorways of the old town hall that now lead to a shallow brick amphitheatre used for outdoor speeches, rallies and theatre.
The remains of the hexagonal tower at the Christchurch Normal School (1873)
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My secondary school on the corner of Cranmer Square has been cleared away, the softened red brick, the Venetian arched windows, the hexagonal room on the corner that was the principal's office, the upstairs library with the high wooden vaulted ceiling where I liked to steal away to read on a wintery lunchtime all gone, gone, gone. My school is just a piece of air floating. On the opposite corner the great grey stone Normal School (1876) designed by Samuel Farr, a building I researched and wrote about for a City Council booklet, while it was still a ruin and which was restored and converted into glorious apartments in the 1980s, is now a ruin again. The hexagonal tower on the corner that echoed the principal's office directly across the Square, is reduced to a broken wall and one forlorn window tracery amongst a pile of rubble.
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‘A pile of rubble.’ Those words don't impart the anguish that grips at your heart when you see dear, beautiful buildings in pieces, destroyed by this confounding earthquake.
Round the corner at the old Teacher's College a big stone ornament, a finial that once decorated the roofline is hanging on by a thread, leaning at a precarious angle towards the ground looking like it will surely drop in the next big shake. On someone’s head? On every visit I notice it dangling there and wonder why it hasn’t been secured.
Round the corner at the old Teacher's College a big stone ornament, a finial that once decorated the roofline is hanging on by a thread, leaning at a precarious angle towards the ground looking like it will surely drop in the next big shake. On someone’s head? On every visit I notice it dangling there and wonder why it hasn’t been secured.
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And what of Shands Emporium (1860) the oldest wooden shop in the city and McLean’s wooden mansion with 53 rooms, lead Mansard towers and an ebullient eclectic style. They both survived the quakes, however the side and back walls of Shand’s Emporium has been severely damaged by the demolition and removal of the buildings next door. Their fate remains unknown.
To me the churches and the cathedrals are so essential for raising spirits and for feeding the soul and the psyche of a traumatised people. The Basilica, the finest example of ecclesiastical architecture in the southern hemisphere, is being taken apart, block by block, each huge section of limestone stored away for now while its fate remains uncertain. |
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As for the Christchurch Cathedral and the Anglican churches, the extraordinary grim-faced, female, Canadian Anglican Bishop is furiously deconsecrating churches so they can be demolished. She maintains ‘the church is the people, not the buildings.’ The very eloquent Dean of Christchurch Cathedral, Peter Beck has resigned in despair and is standing for election to the Christchurch City Council, where he might have a voice. And so discussion about the future of the churches has become mired in personal politics and disputes, weighed down by advice from the structural engineers who seem unable to seek creative solutions towards making the iconic buildings safe and of course the sheer stupefying costs of repair.
In an item on TV3 this morning a group of children were asked about their future wishes for their city. There was the child who said, ‘I want there to be strong buildings.’ There was the boy who said, ‘I want there to be buildings made of glass.’ And there was the last child who said, ‘I want the cathedral builded again.’
In the meantime while we wait and wonder the bulldozers, pummel and bash, claw and pick, moving stealthily onwards like large prehistoric creatures with vicious beaks, relentlessly pulling apart the precious buildings that once earned the city international recognition as having one of the finest collections of neo-Gothic and Edwardian architecture outside of Europe. Daily the trucks arrive and take the precious remains away and then the road builders come in and cover the sites over with asphalt for parking. But who will want to park there? What is left to see? Our historic heritage obliterated with a swipe and a cover up.
Today even those people who knew the city intimately find themselves confused. They turn on their heels, round and round looking this way and that. What stood there once upon a time? We can’t remember.
I could weep.
Of more immediate impact on my family has been the recent sale of my husband’s family home in Opawa. A year ago this was unthinkable. My mother-in-law had vowed and declared she would never leave her home and beautiful flower garden with its large, abundant vegetable plots. Yes her heart bumped erratically and yes approaching her mid-eighties she was finding the care of a big home increasingly burdensome but before February 22nd she couldn’t conceive of life in a retirement village. It would be ‘like living in a coffin’ she shuddered. ‘No. I would rather die in my garden. Just keel over and be done with it.’
The earthquake, the aftershocks, the loss of vital supply stores – supermarket, pharmacy, post office nearby and the cracks right through the foundations of the house that got wider with each shake, changed her mind.
So throughout last year we flew up and down, offering our love and support, helping to sort and sift through a lifetime of treasures, making decisions about whether to keep, sell, give to the local Salvation Army, or throw out.
A week ago, the process of letting go was completed when my husband supervised the felling of one of the giant cherry trees in the back garden of what was once his playing space, because the new owner wants to allow in more light. He has saved the wood and stored it safely under a tarpaulin at a friend’s home, giving it a year to dry out before arranging its transport to Auckland where one day, when he has time, he will begin to think about making furniture.
Thirteen years ago we scattered a baby’s ashes under that cherry tree. Our little niece had died in a paediatric hospital in Switzerland on the day of her birth. Shortly after, my husband met up with his brother and wife and returned home with some of his niece’s ashes. We planted a clematis vine under the cherry tree, for Lauren Holly. It had large dark purple flowers and each Christmas, on our holidays to Christchurch, the flowers, like purple lanterns snaking high in the tree above, reminded us of baby Lauren.
Last weekend our plantsman friend carefully extracted the gnarled and knotty vine and layered it into the earth, saying, ‘It will send down suckers and give you new plants in the spring.’ It is our intention to plant the clematis here in Auckland hoping it will survive in the warmer climate.
After the tree had been felled, my husband returned the teacups to the owner and she showed him through the house. A mistake. In two weeks she had gutted the entire back half of the house, moved the kitchen to the back, taken out the walls between the old bedroom and sunroom and lounge making one big L-shaped room. In the process the ships bunks crafted by my father-in-law for his twin sons were thrown out, along with all the other finely smoothed rimu cupboards and cabinets. All gone in two weeks. More destruction than the earthquake.
Once we thought of our homes as havens, safe places where we go for rest and refuge. The earthquake has negated that notion. At Christmas we visited my uncle and aunt. I am especially fond of this uncle because he is the closest link to my dead father and as well he’s a droll storyteller. We always have a laugh. On this visit the humour was absent. He looked so very tired and strained and anxious as he eyed the brick cladding of his house and said, ‘We wonder how long the house will hold up.’
This week, my mother is being forced out of her hospital room, the place that now represents her home, as builders move through the retirement complex repairing earthquake damage to the structure of the buildings. The carpets are coming up and the concrete foundations are being strengthened and resealed. Further disruption is hard on my mother who has secondary progressive MS and for whom daily routines and continuity are important. Only a fortnight ago, the local shopping mall in Merivale, a place within range of her motorized wheelchair, was closed off to shoppers because it was deemed unsafe. I shudder when I think of all the trips she has made to its cafés and shops since the quakes and my own grocery shopping expeditions, as well, unaware that the level above our heads was already so unsafe.
It is not fair. The familiar built landscape is in pieces; the places where people go for enjoyment are severely reduced. Security, serenity, peace are all gone in Christchurch.
Yesterday my mother said in a tired, defeated voice, as though she had read the column in the Sunday Star Times,
‘I’m wondering whether the earthquake needs this much coverage. Some people here don’t want to read about it anymore.’
People respond to a tragedy in their own style, perhaps. Following my father’s death, my mother avoided anything that upset her nerves. She stopped watching sad movies, scary movies, agitating movies. She diverted the conversation when it grew heated. Even today she still tries to protect herself from the bad, if she can. She has stopped reading the newspaper since the quakes and I respect that.
But Mum, don’t you think the daily articles honour your experience?
How do you mean?
Well, this is a highly unusual situation. When, in our memory, has the media continued to cover an event, long after the initial shocking images ran out? You would have expected them to shift attention away from Christchurch but instead they’ve assumed a public role disseminating essential information and trying to reach a balance between representing the devastation along with the tales of community resilience and creativity.
That’s true, says Mum.
I find it remarkable. The media has born witness to your tragedy, day after day.
Yes.
And don’t you think that with understanding and compassion people can slowly begin the healing process?
Mum is quiet and thoughtful.
This level of recognition validates your pain.
I think you’re right.
The thing I find most astounding in Christchurch now is the arrival of a new kind of fatalism. In July last year we attended my mother’s birthday celebration. She had invited whanau and friends from far and wide to share not just in the birthday but also in an afternoon of solidarity for the earthquake survivors. It was an emotional occasion. People reached out and hugged tightly.
It was over a conversation with two cousins that I first witnessed this extraordinary new attitude. One cousin is a nurse at the earthquake shattered Christchurch hospital. The other cousin escaped burial under a collapsed brick wall, only because, seconds before the first shake on February 22nd she had stood to empty her orange peel into a rubbish bin on the footpath. The quake threw her away from the avalanche of bricks and towards the street.
Together they were talking about their fear of visiting the double-storied suburban malls and how they don’t venture into shops with overhanging verandahs or stone masonry facades. The nurse then said,
‘Ah well, I’ve decided if my time is up, it’s up.’
‘Do you really feel like that?’ I asked, aghast.
They both looked at me, not with irritation, but more an expression of quiet resignation.
I wanted to reach out again and hug.
We don’t think like that in Auckland, do we? We don’t normally have cause to reflect on our bottom line.
This level of stoical pragmatism is usually only found amongst people who live in countries tormented by civil wars where there is constant bombardment and bloodshed that goes on for years and years. Not in New Zealand the land of ‘trim milk’ and ‘honey.’
Before the first big earthquakes ripped under the Canterbury Plains in September 2010, setting off a seemingly endless seismic phenomenon, New Zealanders hadn’t lived in close proximity to danger. People could wake each morning confident that the ground they walked on was rock solid and stable. Now as each Cantabrian faces another day of unpredictable aftershocks they know, deep inside, there is a possibility that today I might die.
In an item on TV3 this morning a group of children were asked about their future wishes for their city. There was the child who said, ‘I want there to be strong buildings.’ There was the boy who said, ‘I want there to be buildings made of glass.’ And there was the last child who said, ‘I want the cathedral builded again.’
In the meantime while we wait and wonder the bulldozers, pummel and bash, claw and pick, moving stealthily onwards like large prehistoric creatures with vicious beaks, relentlessly pulling apart the precious buildings that once earned the city international recognition as having one of the finest collections of neo-Gothic and Edwardian architecture outside of Europe. Daily the trucks arrive and take the precious remains away and then the road builders come in and cover the sites over with asphalt for parking. But who will want to park there? What is left to see? Our historic heritage obliterated with a swipe and a cover up.
Today even those people who knew the city intimately find themselves confused. They turn on their heels, round and round looking this way and that. What stood there once upon a time? We can’t remember.
I could weep.
Of more immediate impact on my family has been the recent sale of my husband’s family home in Opawa. A year ago this was unthinkable. My mother-in-law had vowed and declared she would never leave her home and beautiful flower garden with its large, abundant vegetable plots. Yes her heart bumped erratically and yes approaching her mid-eighties she was finding the care of a big home increasingly burdensome but before February 22nd she couldn’t conceive of life in a retirement village. It would be ‘like living in a coffin’ she shuddered. ‘No. I would rather die in my garden. Just keel over and be done with it.’
The earthquake, the aftershocks, the loss of vital supply stores – supermarket, pharmacy, post office nearby and the cracks right through the foundations of the house that got wider with each shake, changed her mind.
So throughout last year we flew up and down, offering our love and support, helping to sort and sift through a lifetime of treasures, making decisions about whether to keep, sell, give to the local Salvation Army, or throw out.
A week ago, the process of letting go was completed when my husband supervised the felling of one of the giant cherry trees in the back garden of what was once his playing space, because the new owner wants to allow in more light. He has saved the wood and stored it safely under a tarpaulin at a friend’s home, giving it a year to dry out before arranging its transport to Auckland where one day, when he has time, he will begin to think about making furniture.
Thirteen years ago we scattered a baby’s ashes under that cherry tree. Our little niece had died in a paediatric hospital in Switzerland on the day of her birth. Shortly after, my husband met up with his brother and wife and returned home with some of his niece’s ashes. We planted a clematis vine under the cherry tree, for Lauren Holly. It had large dark purple flowers and each Christmas, on our holidays to Christchurch, the flowers, like purple lanterns snaking high in the tree above, reminded us of baby Lauren.
Last weekend our plantsman friend carefully extracted the gnarled and knotty vine and layered it into the earth, saying, ‘It will send down suckers and give you new plants in the spring.’ It is our intention to plant the clematis here in Auckland hoping it will survive in the warmer climate.
After the tree had been felled, my husband returned the teacups to the owner and she showed him through the house. A mistake. In two weeks she had gutted the entire back half of the house, moved the kitchen to the back, taken out the walls between the old bedroom and sunroom and lounge making one big L-shaped room. In the process the ships bunks crafted by my father-in-law for his twin sons were thrown out, along with all the other finely smoothed rimu cupboards and cabinets. All gone in two weeks. More destruction than the earthquake.
Once we thought of our homes as havens, safe places where we go for rest and refuge. The earthquake has negated that notion. At Christmas we visited my uncle and aunt. I am especially fond of this uncle because he is the closest link to my dead father and as well he’s a droll storyteller. We always have a laugh. On this visit the humour was absent. He looked so very tired and strained and anxious as he eyed the brick cladding of his house and said, ‘We wonder how long the house will hold up.’
This week, my mother is being forced out of her hospital room, the place that now represents her home, as builders move through the retirement complex repairing earthquake damage to the structure of the buildings. The carpets are coming up and the concrete foundations are being strengthened and resealed. Further disruption is hard on my mother who has secondary progressive MS and for whom daily routines and continuity are important. Only a fortnight ago, the local shopping mall in Merivale, a place within range of her motorized wheelchair, was closed off to shoppers because it was deemed unsafe. I shudder when I think of all the trips she has made to its cafés and shops since the quakes and my own grocery shopping expeditions, as well, unaware that the level above our heads was already so unsafe.
It is not fair. The familiar built landscape is in pieces; the places where people go for enjoyment are severely reduced. Security, serenity, peace are all gone in Christchurch.
Yesterday my mother said in a tired, defeated voice, as though she had read the column in the Sunday Star Times,
‘I’m wondering whether the earthquake needs this much coverage. Some people here don’t want to read about it anymore.’
People respond to a tragedy in their own style, perhaps. Following my father’s death, my mother avoided anything that upset her nerves. She stopped watching sad movies, scary movies, agitating movies. She diverted the conversation when it grew heated. Even today she still tries to protect herself from the bad, if she can. She has stopped reading the newspaper since the quakes and I respect that.
But Mum, don’t you think the daily articles honour your experience?
How do you mean?
Well, this is a highly unusual situation. When, in our memory, has the media continued to cover an event, long after the initial shocking images ran out? You would have expected them to shift attention away from Christchurch but instead they’ve assumed a public role disseminating essential information and trying to reach a balance between representing the devastation along with the tales of community resilience and creativity.
That’s true, says Mum.
I find it remarkable. The media has born witness to your tragedy, day after day.
Yes.
And don’t you think that with understanding and compassion people can slowly begin the healing process?
Mum is quiet and thoughtful.
This level of recognition validates your pain.
I think you’re right.
The thing I find most astounding in Christchurch now is the arrival of a new kind of fatalism. In July last year we attended my mother’s birthday celebration. She had invited whanau and friends from far and wide to share not just in the birthday but also in an afternoon of solidarity for the earthquake survivors. It was an emotional occasion. People reached out and hugged tightly.
It was over a conversation with two cousins that I first witnessed this extraordinary new attitude. One cousin is a nurse at the earthquake shattered Christchurch hospital. The other cousin escaped burial under a collapsed brick wall, only because, seconds before the first shake on February 22nd she had stood to empty her orange peel into a rubbish bin on the footpath. The quake threw her away from the avalanche of bricks and towards the street.
Together they were talking about their fear of visiting the double-storied suburban malls and how they don’t venture into shops with overhanging verandahs or stone masonry facades. The nurse then said,
‘Ah well, I’ve decided if my time is up, it’s up.’
‘Do you really feel like that?’ I asked, aghast.
They both looked at me, not with irritation, but more an expression of quiet resignation.
I wanted to reach out again and hug.
We don’t think like that in Auckland, do we? We don’t normally have cause to reflect on our bottom line.
This level of stoical pragmatism is usually only found amongst people who live in countries tormented by civil wars where there is constant bombardment and bloodshed that goes on for years and years. Not in New Zealand the land of ‘trim milk’ and ‘honey.’
Before the first big earthquakes ripped under the Canterbury Plains in September 2010, setting off a seemingly endless seismic phenomenon, New Zealanders hadn’t lived in close proximity to danger. People could wake each morning confident that the ground they walked on was rock solid and stable. Now as each Cantabrian faces another day of unpredictable aftershocks they know, deep inside, there is a possibility that today I might die.
Afterword
The columnist for the Sunday Star Times received so many emails, she devoted her entire space, the following week to a heartfelt apology that began with the words, ‘SORRY. I really and truly am.’
