By Anna Burns-Francis
Residents living in the shadow of two Christchurch apartment buildings have been forced to evacuate at short notice after the buildings were marked for demolition.
Perfectly sound townhouses have been red stickered because of the threat of the neighbouring Terrace on the Park apartments, which suffered structural damage in the Dece,ber 23 quake.
The apartments are scheduled for urgent demolition, but in the meantime neighbouring residents have had to leave their homes.
Resident Bridget O'Sullivan said the new information was “scary”.
“I’ve been sleeping soundly at night underneath the eaves of something dangerous,” she says.
“That's just life in Christchurch at the moment.”
CERA demolitions manager Warwick Isaacs says the apartments were built “around 2000” and weren’t on the high priority list after the December quakes.
“It was a building we hadn't put immediate focus on… given that we were looking at buildings we were expecting more damage in,” he says.
Residents moved out of the Terrace on the Park tower blocks last February, but the damage inflicted by the recent round of quakes has weakened two of the blocks so much that they could collapse in the next significant aftershock.
Mr Isaacs says the steel of the buildings has “worked an awful amount… it's actually shorn off in places, blown the concrete and concrete blocks apart”.
With CERA left with little option but to demolish the buildings, Earthquake Minister Gerry Brownlee says it’s a timely warning for business owners to re-check buildings.
“Get your buildings checked again – if you thought they were fine up until the 23rd of December it's worth going to have a look,” he says.
3 News