John Kirk-Anderson/Stuff
Mike Yardley was among the many Christchurch residents to find their way to Latimer Square shortly after the devastating earthquake on February 22, 2011.
OPINION: February 22. It’s not just a date but a stake, a monumental marker that’s been driven deep and defining into the timeline of our lives. A date that elicits a heady spectrum of emotions and that reflexive sense of contorted discomfort in the pits of our stomachs. I’m not a big anniversary kind of guy. I don’t routinely binge on marking dates, but this year feels different because it is. The tenth anniversary of the February 22 earthquake is a potent milestone, serving not just as a totem to all we have lost, but equally, an exacting yardstick on how far or otherwise our city has risen again, from the wrenching depths of civic despair.
Dr Anna Sullivan crawled into the rubble of the CTV building to amputate a survivor s leg.
One hundred and forty-nine people were in the CTV building in Christchurch when it collapsed in the February 2011 earthquake. Of the 34 people who made it out alive, no rescue was more complicated than that of Kento Okuda. His chief rescuer has largely stayed out of the limelight since. On the 10th anniversary of the earthquake, she talks to Michael Wright. Anna Sullivan looked into the dazed eyes of Kento Okuda and did her best to reassure a kid who spoke almost no English before he succumbed to the anaesthetic.
LAWRENCE SMITH/Stuff
Katie Pocock has loved every minute of being a firefighter and cherished the opportunity to be able to help people in their time of need.
It is more common than ever to see a woman picking up a belt sander, a fire hose or handpiece.
Stuff reporter Georgia Forrester chats to wāhine who are smashing stereotypes in traditionally male-dominated industries. Katie Pocock is used to being a trailblazer. Because throughout her almost two-decade-long career as a firefighter, she has had to be. When Pocock first finished high school, she studied communications at AUT (Auckland University of Technology) with the aim of heading into the media industry. At the time she was a surf lifesaver and kayaker, and had been racing for New Zealand. Her sport meant she was away a lot. Her last year of university ended up stretching over two years and she started to lose interest in the degree.
STUFF
More people are moving into Christchurch s central city as property sales boom, with the rental market also strong.
It was once little more than a ghost town, but Christchurch s central city is becoming “lively” with residents as new-build properties sell and the rental market holds strong. After a lag in sales last year, 95 per cent of available homes in the Government-driven One Central development have now sold. One of Christchurch’s biggest private developers also says the market is the hottest it has ever seen in the central city, with only a handful of properties currently available to buy in the area.