At least five Northwood homes are uninhabitable after being severely damaged in a gas explosion in the Christchurch suburb.
The explosion on Friday left six people injured, obliterated one home and damaged 20 others including five that were severely damaged by fire.
One person is in a critical condition and three others are stable at Christchurch Hospital. Another person is in a stable condition in Auckland's Middlemore Hospital.
Witnesses said damage could be seen up to 100 metres away, and police evacuated about 50 residents from their homes.
The damaged house at the centre of the explosion. Photo / Hayden Ivory
"Police, WorkSafe and Fire and Emergency investigators are continuing to examine the wider scene but also the house itself, that work will continue today and we expect that work to finish by late Tuesday afternoon."
Evacuated residents of Marble Court were yesterday escorted to their properties by police to collect belongings as they waited for engineers to decide whether they would ever be able to live there again.
Indraj Fonseka and his wife Amita were the first people to own a home in the Northwood subdivision, building their Marble Court home in 2009.
They were at both inside on Friday morning when the house across the road exploded.
Fonseka said the noise was like nothing he'd ever heard before, and as his wife screamed he had no idea as to what was going on.
"We didn't know, we first thought that this explosion was within our house, but then I came out to see that there's a fire going on in front of house.
"I realised that the whole neighbourhood has been affected."
The couple's house was significantly damaged. To make matters worse, they had only recently finished their EQC repairs.
Fonseka is still not sure whether the house is salvageable, but had already told his insurer he wanted out.
"I have actually spoken to my insurance company and told them I would rather go for a settlement so that I can move on.
The Fonseka family will stay with friends until they can find somewhere more suitable to rent.
One resident who has been allowed back is Air New Zealand operations controller, Jeff Gin.
The house was reduced to 'matchsticks'.
Gin was working at Christchurch Airport, 8km from his home in Northwood, when he heard a great bang.
At first he thought it was an earthquake, but when a neighbour called to tell him what happened, he quickly rushed home to check on his four children.
"The children were fine, they had a shock but they thought it was a thunderstorm, so we just played along with that and said that we are going over to see grandma and granddad."
