By Jessica Rowe
Almost half of the shops at Christchurch's Merivale Mall were urgently evacuated this morning after being deemed an earthquake risk.
Shoppers were turned away from their local supermarket and their favourite shops in Merivale Mall today, after an engineer's report showed issues with the building's structural integrity.
Around 18 shops, two kiosks and the supermarket were closed, forcing customers to go elsewhere.
“It seems a strange time to close it doesn’t it? You would have thought if it was going to be closed it wouldn’t have been on probably the busiest day of the week,” says shopper Ross Grenfell.
“I guess it’s probably good from a safety point of view – we don’t want to be in here if anything dangerous happens,” says Nick Emery.
Management told retailers around 9am this morning they had to move out immediately. It is the third time Sergio’s menswear has had to pack up shop since the February quake, and they have had enough.
“There’s not many strings left in the bow so we’ll see what happens in the next month,” says Kevin Gainsford of Sergio’s Menswear.
In September, CERA instructed the owners of about 8,000 buildings used by the public to get engineers to assess the buildings once again, and just last week, they announced the urgent demolition of the Terrace on the Park apartments after it was found they suffered significant structural damage in the December quakes.
The managers of Merivale Mall, Tower Property Fund, did not want to appear on camera but issued a statement this afternoon, saying following engineers advice they have cordoned off a large section of the mall to ensure the safety of shoppers and staff.
It is unclear how long the affected area will be closed, but engineers will be back checking the building on Monday.
3 News