16TH ENGINEERING HERITAGE AUSTRALIA CONFERENCE

THE PERFORMANCE OF HERITAGE BUILDINGS IN THE 2010/2011 CHRISTCHURCH

EARTHQUAKE SWARM
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A Marriott
Director, Marriott Consulting Engineers Ltd, Auckland

ABSTRACT
The Canterbury region in the South Island of New Zealand has sustained a number of significant
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earthquakes from 4 September 2010 until the present. The author has been advising Christchurch City
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Councils heritage earthquake response team on its heritage buildings since 1 March 2011 and this paper is
intended to review the performance of the listed heritage building stock in the earthquake swarm. It will
detail the history of how the regions buildings developed, typical building types, the tectonic setting, the
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events of 4 September 2010 and 22 February 2011, civil defence procedures, inspections and indicator
buildings, heritage buildings, other buildings, types of failures, performance of seismic retrofits, churches and
personal experiences.

1 INTRODUCTION
A M7.8 earthquake struck the Hawkes Bay region of New Zealand in 1931, killing 256 people. Since this time
buildings in New Zealand have been required to be designed for earthquakes. Prior to this the European
settling of towns and cities such as Christchurch (settled in 1851) followed the traditions and skills of the
settlers, resulting in distinctive regional building types. Early development in Christchurch was based on
stone and brick buildings that were unreinforced. Some of these buildings survived to form the Heritage
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building stock that existed prior to the 4 September 2010 earthquake. There are approximately 850 listed
heritage buildings in the Canterbury region.
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On 4 September 2010 a Mw 7.1 earthquake struck the Canterbury region, which was followed by numerous
aftershocks, some of which were large enough to be significant earthquakes in their own right. This 2010 and
2011 earthquake swarm has affected the heritage building stock severely, with many buildings either
collapsing, partially collapsing or being damaged to a lesser extent. This paper sets out to detail why the
heritage buildings have been affected so badly and lessons that can be learned from Christchurch in terms
of upgrading heritage buildings and in dealing with future events of this type.

Figure 1: Dust cloud from February 22

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2011 earthquake.

2 HISTORY OF CONSTRUCTION IN CHRISTCHURCH

Christchurch was settled based on plans drawn up in England by the Canterbury Association and the early
buildings were therefore built largely in unreinforced stone and brick masonry, known as URM buildings
(unreinforced masonry). The development spread from the present Cathedral Square, adjacent to the Avon

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River, radiating out until houses were built on the Port Hills in the late 19 Century. Timber and then
reinforced concrete buildings were introduced at later dates as skills and materials became available.
The city was founded along the banks of the Avon River on a broad alluvial plain. It is unlikely that
significant thought was given to the possibility of earthquakes affecting the city, although it is known that
earthquakes occurred in 1881, 1888 and 1901. Unlike other regional centres such as Auckland,
Christchurch has retained a significant proportion of its early buildings as redevelopment has occurred at a
slower pace. Christchurch has the highest percentage of early or heritage buildings in New Zealand of any
major city as indicated in Figure 2 .

Estimated %NBS of URM buildings in Provinces throughout New Zealand

Figure 2: Comparison of URM buildings in New Zealand

3 TECHTONIC SETTING
3.1

OVERALL TECHTONIC SETTING

New Zealand is situated on the Pacific Rim, an area of well documented seismic activity as shown in figure
3. Specifically New Zealand lies on the interface between the Pacific plate and Australian plate, as shown in
Figure 3. This results in movement on the alpine fault where the land to the west is rising (Southern Alps)
and the land to the east is dipping, as shown in Figure 4.

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Figure 3: Seismicity of the pacific rim 1990-2000

Figure 4: Plate movement along New Zealands Alpine Fault

The movement between the plates results in seismic and volcanic activity with the activity prior to September
2011 being more intense closer to the Alpine Fault as indicated in Figure 5. Areas lying on the fault line are
subject to higher building standards under local government seismic retrofitting policies, or a more active
programme of retrofitting.

Figure 5: Effect of distance from Alpine Fault on level of retrofitting standards

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The Alpine fault has long been studied and used as the model for designing post 1931 buildings in
Christchurch and the surrounding region. There were no known faults in and around Christchurch City until
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4 September 2010, as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6: Level of seismic activity in the twelve months leading up to 4 September 2010.
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3.2 SEPTEMBER 4

2010 EVENT

The first earthquake of the current swarm occurred at 4:35 am (NZ Standard time) with a Magnitude of Mw
7.1, focal depth of 10 km and Maximum Intensity: MMI 8. The epicentre was at Darfield, located 47 km west
of the Christchurch CBD. There were no direct fatalities (one heart attack),and only one major casualty due
to a falling chimney. It was the largest earthquake on record to occur within 40 km of any major city,
worldwide, and cause no fatalities. The felt intensity of the event is shown below in Figure 7.

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There were numerous places where offset could be measured right lateral movement of up to about 3m,
with variable vertical throw (mostly < 1 m), as shown in Figures 8 and 9.

Figure 8: Vertical ground movement

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Figure 9: Horizontal ground movement

In all 162 URM buildings suffered more than 10% damage. Examples of typical damage are shown in Figure
10 below.

Figure 10: Damaged URM buildings after September event

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3.3

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FEBRUARY 22

2011 EVENT

This event occurred at 12.51pm (NZ Standard time) with a Magnitude of Mw 6.3, right in the middle of a busy
working day, and major loss of life and injury occurred. The epicentre was located in the nearby port hills at a
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depth of 5km The earthquake swarm from 4 September 2010 to mid May 2011 is shown in Figure 11.

Figure 11: Extent of September and February earthquake swarm

The February earthquake was characterised by very large vertical movements which are shown in figure 12.
The vertical accellerations peeked at over 2g, a magnitude not previously observed in New Zealand and
certainly not required to be designed for in local Codes of Practice.

Figure 12: Horizontal and Vertical magnitude of February event

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The extent of the earthquake swarm that has continued since September 2010 is shown in Figure 13. The
trend is clear to see, each large earthquake followed by intense activity tapering off with time.

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Figure 13: Extent of earthquake activity September 2010 until 28 March 2011

Figure 14 shows that whilst the magnitude of the Christchurch event was greater than that of the Haiti event,
there were fewer deaths due to superior codes of practice and building techniques.

Figure 14: Comparison of earthquake events around the world with the Christchurch events

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4 EFFECT OF THE EARTHQUAKES ON HERITAGE

The earthquake events have had a devastating effect on the heritage building stock of Christchurch, with 159
listed heritage buildings having collapsed or been demolished at the time of writing. The Government has
been supportive of efforts to strengthen heritage buildings prior to September 2010 to help prevent collapse
during an earthquake, but the timeframes for this being implemented across the country, and the low level of
strengthening required by local government, led to very few buildings in the Christchurch area being
strengthened. The heritage stock, which was generally built prior to the 1931 Napier earthquake, was
therefore not generally strong enough to sustain the earthquakes in 2010 and 2011.
The mortar in the masonry heritage buildings was generally a weak to very weak lime mortar that had not
been repointed. Tests by others revealed mortar strengths of 1-5 MPa, which is very weak in a structural
sense. Indeed most mortar could be raked out of the joints by hand. This resulted in walls which failed due to
a lack of strength in the mortar. Weak mortar also resulted in walls failing in face loads. Figure 15 shows a
church with typical face load failure.

Figure 15: St Lukes Church with wall failure due to face loading
Other issues that were noted were poor selection of materials, for example using a brick firewall in a timber
framed house where the horizontal force on the heavy brick element pulled the rest of the house out of
plumb, as shown in Figure 16 below. A lack of horizontal and vertical diaphragms resulting in no load
sharing with other elements and poor connectivity of the floor diaphragms to walls resulted in walls, roof and
floors collapsing.

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Figure 16: Chester Street East house racked due to brick fire wall
Many buildings lost parapets, or upper levels, and these fell onto the street, neighbouring buildings, or into
the building itself, as shown in Figure 17. This type of failure led to the largest number of deaths from
heritage buildings.

Figure 17: Weekly Press building in Cashel Mall with failure of parapet and upper wall

Other buildings were severely damaged when the loads were transferred into the weakest element which
was unable to resist the subsequent lateral loads, for example the brick arches in the building shown in
Figure 18.

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Figure 18: Avonmore House in Hereford Street with brick arch spandrel failure
Many buildings failed due to panel shear failure as shown in Figure 19 below.

Figure 19: Kenton Chambers, Hereford Street with severe shear failure in the brick panels

In some cases where buildings were propped following earlier earthquake events, successive shocks lead to
collapse of the original building, leaving the propping standing as shown in Figure 19. Three people died
during the February shock trying to retrieve an organ from this church.

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Figure 19: Durham Street Church where the propping failed to save the building from collapse

Many examples were noted of strengthening techniques that did not perform to an acceptable level. These
included epoxy resin anchor fixings which simply pulled out of the wall. Structural steel frames added to
support brick buildings where the frame was standing, but the brick had collapsed due to a failure of, or lack
of fixings to the brickwork. Parapets poorly secured to the roof with inadequate fixings.
Where buildings had been well strengthened they generally performed very well. The key appeared to be
reliance on a large number of lowly stressed elements working together as a structural system, rather than
say a steel frame with discrete fixings to the heritage fabric.

5 CIVIL DEFENCE PROCEDURES

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Following the February 22 earthquake I volunteered through IPENZ to provide engineering support during
the Civil Defence Emergency. Due to my heritage experience I was assigned to advise exclusively on listed
heritage buildings and monuments.
A placard system was used following an initial Level 1 (external visual) inspection of each building. Green
placards were given to buildings we believed were largely undamaged and could safely be occupied. Yellow
placards were placed on buildings with moderate damage that could be entered for a limited time for
assessment or retrieval of important items such as computer servers. Red placards were given to buildings
likely to be demolished due to the structure being compromised.
I inspected the majority of heritage
buildings in the CBD and Lyttleton. This was followed by Level 2 (internal and external) inspections to
confirm the type of placard and what work would be required to either make safe, partially demolish or fully
demolish each building. These were then added into reports by heritage planners, and often a conservation
architect, and sent to the National Civil Defence Controller for approval.
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The Civil Defence emergency ended on 30 April and from 1 May the process was handed over to the
Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA). The procedures continued much as it had under the
Civil Defence emergency, except the Government took a negative attitude to the retention of heritage
buildings. This negative attitude meant that there was a higher chance of a heritage building being
demolished than kept if it was damaged, and a strong argument had to be made by the heritage team for
saving rather than losing buildings.
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The procedures were interrupted by two significant aftershocks on 13 June. These earthquakes caused
significant additional damage to heritage and other buildings and led to a raft of urgent demolitions, many of
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them heritage buildings which in my opinion were demolished too quickly and with insufficient input from
Heritage professionals.
Eight representative buildings were chosen as indicator buildings, to indicate the extent of damage that was
occurring in aftershocks. These were all in the cordoned off red zone which included most of the CBD of
Christchurch. A detailed photographic record was undertaken recording all of the significant damage to the
exterior of the buildings. The buildings were then rechecked after each significant aftershock of M 5 or
greater. The photos were retaken from the same position to gauge any further damage. These results were
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then used to extrapolate the level of damage across the whole CBD. After the M 6.7 earthquake on 13
June, the CBD was shutdown until further rapid assessments were carried out, this decision was based on
the severe damage to the indicator buildings.

6 DISCUSSION
The earthquake swarm that has affected the Christchurch area has had a devastating effect on the heritage
buildings and monuments. The people who were in or near heritage and other buildings during the
significant earthquakes are reluctant to enter these types of buildings again. The local council has created a
policy that all buildings are required to be checked by an Engineer and have at least 67% of new building
strength (NBS), an increase from the previous 33%. The Department of Building and Housing has, along
with the engineering professions help, determined that the local seismic hazard factor should be increased
from 0.22 to 0.3. These increases will result in buildings being required to have approximately 91% of NBS.
This level of strengthening was, prior to September 2010, very rarely used due to the cost and invasive
nature of the strengthening. It is becoming very clear that the public are expecting to see that buildings they
are using have been adequately strengthened. The result of this is likely to be that more heritage buildings
will be lost due to insufficient funding to save them all.
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Following the June 13 aftershocks insurance companies have been informed by their overseas reinsurers
that they will not cover any future events. This has left most owners of heritage uninsured and therefore
more likely to make a claim on the earlier earthquake damage and demolish their buildings, using the
insurance money to rebuild in modern materials and to current codes of practice.
Being a part of a team trying to save the heritage buildings and monuments, it has been frustrating to see the
effects of the consecutive earthquakes on the heritage building stock. The ongoing damage is a result of the
initial damage having reduced the strength of the lateral resisting elements which then progressively lose the
ability to sustain further shocks. Under the Civil Defence Emergency there was no provision for making
buildings safe urgently and this lead to more damage and loss of buildings.
The wider engineering community needs educating in sensitive and adequate methods of strengthening that
protect the heritage buildings. Too many examples were noted of very poor detailing that did not perform and
was left standing whilst the heritage fabric collapsed around it.
Disaster of this scale means we have to consider higher protection for significant buildings have we diluted
the conservation of our heritage by trying to save too many buildings and stretching the money too far,
resulting in poorer protection for more buildings?
There was considerable debate on the value of human life vs value of heritage buildings. As Engineers we
risked our lives to enter severely damaged heritage buildings in order to try to fully assess their condition. If
repairs or make safe works are required, then building contractors need to spend considerable periods of
time inside these buildings, putting themselves at a high risk of being injured or killed if the building collapses
in an aftershock, as in the example of the church that collapsed onto the organ specialists, discussed above.
The work following the earthquakes has highlighted the value of experienced heritage engineers vs standard
structural engineers. There are huge discrepancies in the advice given by different engineers based on their
experience, or lack of experience with heritage buildings. Under the IPENZ code of ethics, I believe a
number of these engineers should have refused to investigate the heritage buildings due to their lack of
experience. A large volume of data has been gathered on the effects of earthquakes on heritage buildings
and I believe, funding should be provided to the Universities and others to bring this together to assist with
revised detailing of preferred structural repairs and strengthening of heritage buildings. Seminars should
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then be provided to provide the information to the engineering community at large. This will help to raise the
general level of knowledge and prevent some of the poor decision making and detailing that has occurred.
This will not however, negate the need for experienced heritage engineers to be involved in work on listed
heritage, as this is a highly specialised area of expertise.

7 CONCLUSION
The Christchurch earthquake swarm has had a major impact on the heritage in the area. Many buildings
and monuments have collapsed, been demolished, partially demolished or made safe. If the majority of
these buildings had been adequately strengthened, more would have survived.
Heritage Engineers need to encourage government, local authorities and building owners to strengthen
heritage buildings to an adequate level, 67% or greater of new building strength. Conservation Architects
will need to accept a greater level of intrusion where more of the structure will be exposed.

8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks go to Associate Professor Jason Ingham of The University of Auckland for the data on the
Earthquake swarm.

9 REFERENCES
The performance of masonry buildings in the 2010/2011 earthquake swarm by Associate Professor Jason
Ingham of The University of Auckland. Presentation at eleventh NAMC June 5-8 2011.

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