Bob Parker: From the rubble, a new city emerges

Christchurch mayor Bob Parker. Photo / Mark Mitchell

They told us how the quake hit them and their families. Now, five Cantabrians tell us how their lives have changed.

On February 22, 2011, 50,000 people went to work in the heart of our city. Thousands of others went into the city to shop, carry out commerce, visit medical services, or even just to enjoy a beautiful day.

By day's end dozens lay dead and trapped in rubble while around them hundreds of emergency service personnel, medical staff, council staff and Civil Defence volunteers fought with one thought: to save as many as we could from the devastation.

No power, no water, many roads impassable, bridges down, communication limited. Great swathes of our communities were rendered almost uninhabitable. The February 6.3 magnitude aftershock shook our beautiful city to the core. Seconds of terror turned to minutes of panic, hours of anxiousness, days of despair and weeks of disbelief.

The sights, the noise, the smell and the sounds of February 22 are something I will never forget.

Three months and thousands of aftershocks later, those sickening emotions are still raw. Families continue to grieve, businesses work to restore operations, and we still live in a state of uncertainty, rocked by constant aftershocks. Our lives are on a knife-edge, but the sadness that seeped through our souls is slowly dissipating as a new sense of vigour envelops the city.

We will build a better city because this is our home.

I am incredibly proud of our achievements to date. More than 10,000 residents joined the council at the Share an Idea forum to have their say on rebuilding the city; we have reduced the number of residents using chemical toilets to 10,000; we have begun recycling the six million tonnes of rubble; we have begun work on a temporary housing village in Linwood Park.

Our biggest challenge surely lies in maintaining our spirit and drive in the face of an incredibly daunting task. We must take this tragedy and turn it around.

I want to send two messages to the people of New Zealand. The first is simple. Thank you.

The support we have received has been overwhelming. We have had young school kids organising coin trails, nanas knitting winter hats, and everything in between.

Second, we cannot be complacent. New Zealand is the product of a collision of two tectonic plates. We cannot ignore the seismic reality of the country we live in.

We all must learn lessons from what Christchurch has endured and invest wisely to protect our people.