Christchurch s earthquake-crippled Christ Church Cathedral reinstatement work reaches one year milestone
19 May, 2021 05:00 PM
6 minutes to read
Ten years on from being devastated in the February 22, 2011 earthquake, the Christ Church Cathedral is slowly being put back together. Photo / George Heard
Ten years on from being devastated in the February 22, 2011 earthquake, the Christ Church Cathedral is slowly being put back together. Photo / George Heard
Overlooking the battered and bruised cathedral, John Robert Godley commands the best view of progress.
Like a stoic site foreman, Canterbury s founding father surveys the scene. Squadrons of cooing pigeons land amongst green buddleia sprouting from cracked guttering and piles of aged debris.
Christchurch Cathedral under repair nearly 10 years after a deadly 6.3 magnitude earthquake rocked the city Photograph: Marty Melville/AFP/Getty Images
In the months, then years, after the Christchurch earthquake, it was not Sue Spigel’s mind that needed healing, but her spirit.
What worked was her home high on the hillside above Governors Bay, where Spigel, 74, and her husband, Bob, have lived for 20 years. “It was this place … being here, cocooned from the rest of the agony that was going on, that really helped,” she says, sat with her back to a large window framing bush, sky and sea. Play Video