Rather than a magnitude 6 aftershock centred several tens of kilometres west of the city on the recently revealed Greendale Fault, the fault rupture was almost under the city, about 5km below the Heathcote to Lyttelton road tunnel in hard volcanic rock that snapped violently at 12.51pm that day. The angle of the previously unknown fault under the Port Hills directed the energy released by the earthquake straight back at the city, with severe shaking in eastern parts of Christchurch.
Richard Cosgrove/Stuff
Eighteen people died in the PGC building on Cambridge Tce after the February 2011 earthquake struck Christchurch. Those ground motions had been thought to be among the most extreme in the world to date.
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.