Christchurch quake: Goodbye Portaloos

A wall of shipping containers lines the road to protect against falling rocks

Five months after a quake that scored a direct hit under Christchurch, it's goodbye to portable toilets but hello to rows of shipping containers lining the streets. Why?

It's almost five months on from the 22 February earthquake, and the portable toilets are soon to be removed from the streets of Sumner.
We can now flush our toilets as the sewage system for our area has been repaired and reconnected to the treatment works.
A step forward.
The roads are gradually getting asphalt patches to fill in potholes and crevices.
A step forward.

Sumner's Portaloos are, finally, no longer needed

We are classified as being in the White Zone, which covers the badly hit areas where damage has yet to be fully mapped. So the number of geologists in my suburb has been increased to monitor the movement and stability of the land we sit on and report back as soon as possible.
A step forward.
This is an event that started 10 months ago with a 7.1 quake last September, and since then we have had earthquakes and aftershocks on an unprecedented level.
The size and number of aftershocks has had an overwhelming impact. To put it in perspective, the impact is equivalent to that of 10 Katrinas.
The insurance cost to our country is 10% of our GDP - in Japan with its earthquake and ensuing devastating tsunami, the cost is 1% of their GDP. Reinsurance has become a major problem.
What helps us cope is focusing on the small achievements. Sumner is a place of visionary and enterprising people. And one person who has great vision is Dinesh Patel, a local graphic designer. He wants to create a huge work of art that will change our battered landscape.

Christchurch's four damage zones

• Red: Unsuitable for homes in long-term - extensive damage, with risk of more damage from aftershocks
• White: Mapping still underway in hill suburbs and central business district
• Green: Repairs and rebuilding can begin
• Orange: More tests needed before repairs and rebuilding can proceed

At the moment Sumner is a village of hundreds of shipping containers. These have been craned in to make walls two high to protect roads and buildings from rocks dislodged by the aftershocks.

These metal boxes are ugly and imposing. They draw our attention to fallen rocks, unstable cliffs and homes that have fallen from a great height to road level.
Dinesh wants to transform these rutted, rusting boxes into a photographic streetscape.
Photos of early Maori history, our wildlife and incredible scenery, our beloved All Blacks, and our children will be transferred onto sheets of vinyl that will totally cover the hundreds of metres of container surface to give us a timeline of our history.
Colour, vibrancy, history and the future will all be captured, with reproductions of local scenes painted by artists such as Rita Angus, Douglas Liburn, Colin McCahon and Bill Hammonds.
We still drive on roads that, although patched, pitch cars about like small boats on a choppy sea.
Although our tap water is again drinkable, it is heavily chlorinated. And although the earth still judders under us and our houses creak and sway, we can see a bright future thanks to this, and other projects to rebuild and recreate our city.

Posted in: asia-pac