More than 6400 people in the remote Santa Cruz Islands in Temotu Province, 500km east of Honiara in the Solomon Islands, are coming to terms with devastation and loss wrought by the double disaster of an earthquake and tsunami last month.

Damaged chimneys and homeless people are likely to lead to more abandoned red zone properties going up in flames this winter, firefighters fear.

The 1888 Gothic revival presbytery beside St Patrick's Catholic Cathedral in Auckland CBD is an earthquake-prone building.

When Queen St's Imperial Laneway got its $15 million makeover a couple of years ago, owners poured $4 million into seismic strengthening.

Mark Simmonds who, with his wife Bronwyn Paul, runs a wedding and event venue in a renovated Edwardian building in Wanganui, can no longer get insurance cover for earthquake damage.

Kingsland property owner Pam Willis says insurance premiums may reach the point where owners start tearing down commercial buildings.

Cantabrians would be helped into driving post-earthquake recovery if Labour returned to Government, party leader David Shearer vowed today.

Challenging a $337,000 payout to repair a Christchurch home by lodging a $900,000 claim means the case will be "impossible to resolve", a court heard today.

The Government is proposing building owners strengthen earthquake-prone buildings within the next 15 years so that by 2028, we will be much safer if another major quake strikes.

Affordability is a huge issue for small businesses and building owners, Mr Gudgeon says. "Strengthening is a cost burden - with no return".

Some of New Zealand's historic buildings are about to be hit by a multibillion-dollar bombshell, as the Government forces their strengthening, experts claim.

Scientists predict an earthquake swarm rattling the east coast of the North Island could continue for days.

A series of earthquakes have hit the Hawkes Bay overnight.

There have been several earthquakes near Wairoa this evening. The latest was at 5:45pm and registered 4.1 in magnitude.

Two years on. One year on from the one year anniversary, the city feels very subdued, writes James Dann. There is no big civic memorial ceremony.

More than two years after the earthquake, Christchurch's Dr Mark Quigley is still hunting for clues that could unlock the seismic secrets hidden beneath the city.

Two years ago today, with a force equal to 15,000 tonnes of TNT, came the devastating aftershock that scientists hoped they would never see.

"What most people want is not knowledge, but certainty." It's an apt quote of philosopher Bertrand Russell that Italy's Professor Massimiano Bucchi borrows to sum up people's expectation of what science should be able to tell us before earthquakes happen

Predicting earthquakes is generally seen as not possible - but in the 1970s some eventual flops sparked a brief stir in the scientific community.

A one-hour civic memorial service will be held at midday tomorrow in Latimer Square, used as a makeshift triage centre on that day two years ago when 185 people died.

New Zealand cities must capitalise on Christchurch's earthquake experience if they are to make themselves more resilient to natural disasters, a top quake expert says.

Despite Gerry Brownlee's best PR spin, everything is not going swimmingly in Christchurch, writes blogger James Dann.