Garry's Blog

Canterbury Earthquake Royal Commission

A short guide to some documents of heritage interest.

Volume 4 which deals with unreinforced masonry buildings their strengthening and performance is of the greatest heritage interest.

Volume 4: Earthquake-prone buildings

Section 4: Individual unreinforced masonry buildings that caused fatalities (.docx)

Section 5: Unreinforced masonry buildings and their performance in earthquakes (.docx)

Section 7: Earthquake-prone buildings policy and legislation (.docx)

Appendix 1: Seismic retrofit case studies

The focus on the CTV building has meant CCC has got of with relatively little attention to its performance with dealing with sub-standard buildings prior to the earthquakes. It is described as passive. Undoubtedly this passivity contributed to the death toll.

Much of the rest oft the commission's report is highly technical - and only specialist structural engineers will cope with all the detail. Still a skim through these will give some general points.

Vol 2: The Performance of Christchurch CBD Buildings

Vol 6: Canterbury Television Building (CTV)

With the CTV building the commission coped admirably with a very difficult task:

Interpreting the design against the standards and bylaws of the day which were not well developed or consistent
Applying judgement as to what prudent engineering practice would have been at the time
Witnesses who were sometimes less than forthcoming on their roles.

The design inadequacies and the missed opportunities to correct them are a very unhappy chapter in New Zealand's professional engineering.

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