Picture: An old church on Banks Peninsula, south of Christchurch, that got damaged in the September 2010 earthquake.
Traveling through New Zealand one gets constantly reminded of the volatile nature of the earth underneath ones' feet: from the massive Lake Taupo caldera to steamy and sulphuric Rotorua and the collapsed buildings in the Christchurch region, courtesy of the last big earthquake in September 2010. New Zealand is constantly under threat from earthquake and we were lucky to have missed the most recent one in Christchurch after Christmas 2010 on Boxing Day. The positive news about earthquake is that people have learned to adapt their building-technology. Interestingly the very popular old-style wooden houses seem to be among the most sturdy structures: the houses just sway with the shocks but do not collapse. So rarely do people get killed in earthquakes here and the devastating fires after an earthquake, like the one in Napier in the 1930s are a thing of the past. But what the most recent earthquake in Christchurch did was to scare away Christmas shoppers and therefore damaged the retailing industry more. However, as I talked to a local plumber from Christchurch, I learned that the earthquake-damage actually has provided work for the local builders across New Zealand.
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