More
than 20,000 damage claims have been lodged with the Earthquake
Commission since fresh swarms of quakes rocked Christchurch on December
23 and January 2.
Two jolts measuring 5.8 and 6.0 hit the city on
the afternoon of December 23, causing rockfalls, damage to water and
power supplies and liquefaction in some areas.
Another swarm of quakes, with the biggest measuring 5.5, followed on January 2.
The
EQC says the number of claims for the two days' quakes makes them the
fourth largest claims event - overtaking Boxing Day 2010.
It has so far paid out $750,000 for claims from both days' quakes, mainly for urgent repairs.
Despite
the volume of claims, the EQC does not expect targets in the Fletcher
Earthquake Recovery home repair programme to be affected.
The
programme aims to have all properties with more than $50,000 worth of
damage repaired by mid-2013, and at least 80 per cent of all properties
repaired by the end of 2014.
Since the initial September 4 quake in 2010, the EQC has received more than 430,000 claims, and paid out $2.8 billion.
NZN