Most of the damage was in the area surrounding the epicentre, including the city of
Christchurch, New Zealand's second-largest urban area with a population of 386,000. Minor damage was reported as far away as
Dunedin and
Nelson, both around from the earthquake's epicentre. The September 2010 earthquake caused two Christchurch residents to be seriously injured, one by a falling chimney and a second by flying glass, and led to many with less serious injuries. One person died of a heart attack suffered during the quake, with the coroner's report identifying the earthquake as being a contributing factor. The subsequent
22 February 2011 aftershock caused a large number of deaths and casualties, along with significant damage to buildings and infrastructure.
Financial exposure Total Earthquake Commission (EQC), private insurance and individual costs were estimated to reach as high as 4 billion according to the New Zealand Treasury. The Earthquake Commission covers only domestic residences with private insurance and does not provide cover for businesses. The EQC payout is limited to the first $100,000 plus
GST of any individual claim, with any amount above that covered by the insurance company holding the policy. The insurance companies themselves had limited or no exposure, having offloaded most of their risk to reinsurance companies. The EQC had reinsurance of $2.5 billion with a $1.5 billion excess, so its exposure was the first $1.5 billion and any amount after the first $4 billion. It had a total fund prior to this earthquake of approx $6 billion. For comparison, the
1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake cost
NZ£7 million, equal to approximately $650 million in 2010 dollars.
Effects in Christchurch over the
Avon River Reports of the quake's intensity in Christchurch generally ranged from V to VIII (
Moderate to
Severe) on the
Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale.
Sewers were damaged, and water lines were broken. The water supply at Rolleston, located to the southwest of Christchurch, was contaminated. Power to up to 75 percent of the city was disrupted.
Christchurch Hospital was forced to use emergency generators in the immediate aftermath of the quake. One building caught fire after its electricity was turned back on, igniting leaking
LPG in the building. The fire was quickly extinguished by the
Fire Service before it could spread. Damage to buried pipes may have allowed sewage to contaminate the residential water supply. Residents were
warned to boil tap water before using it for brushing teeth, drinking, and washing or cooking food. Several cases of
gastroenteritis were reported. By 7 September 28 cases had been observed at the city's welfare centres. The boil water notice for Christchurch and Banks Peninsula was lifted late on 8 September 2010, after more than 500 tests conducted over three days found no contamination.
Christchurch International Airport was closed following the earthquake and flights in and out of it cancelled. It reopened at 1:30pm, following inspection of the terminals and main runway. All schools and early childhood centres in Christchurch City, Selwyn and Waimakariri Districts were ordered shut until Monday 13 September for health and safety assessments. The city's two universities, the
University of Canterbury and
Lincoln University, and the
Christchurch campus of the
University of Otago were also closed until 13 September awaiting health and safety assessments. in the background Crime in Christchurch decreased eleven percent compared with the previous year following the earthquake, although there were initial reports of
looting in the city centre and "known criminals" trying to pass off as council workers to get into the central city cordon area. Police also observed a fifty-three percent jump in the rates of
domestic violence following the earthquake. Many more heart attacks than usual were reported in the days following the quake. Usually the heart unit at Christchurch Hospital handles two to three heart attacks a day, but the rate had risen to eight to ten a day after the earthquake. A record number of babies for a Saturday were born at Christchurch Women's Hospital in the twenty-four hours after the quake, with the first baby arriving six minutes after the initial shock. This was at least in part due to outlying birthing centres being closed, pending structural checks, forcing more mothers to deliver at hospitals than was generally the case.
Effects outside Christchurch suffered major damage; many of the town's buildings had to be bulldozed as a result of the 2010 earthquake and subsequent quake in February 2011. The quake's
epicentre was around
Darfield, around from Christchurch. Four metres (13 ft) of sideways movement has been measured between the two sides of the previously unknown fault. Power outages were reported as far away as Dunedin. Access was restricted to over 350 homes in the town of Kaiapoi, of which about 100 were deemed unsafe. Some 22 commercial properties were deemed unsafe. According to Ron Keating, Mayor of Waimakariri District, the town "will never be the same again". As noted above, damage to buried pipes may have allowed sewage to contaminate the residential water supply, and residents were
warned to boil tap water before using it for brushing teeth, drinking, and washing or cooking food. A boil water notice for most of Selwyn District was lifted on 9 September.
E. coli had been found in a water sample from Kaiapoi, and a boil water notice remained in effect for parts of Waimakariri District until 19 September. A section of rail track was damaged near
Kaiapoi and there was lesser track damage at
Rolleston and near
Belfast. As a precaution, state rail operator
KiwiRail shut down the entire South Island rail network after the earthquake, halting some 15 trains. Two locomotives running light (i.e. without any carriages or wagons) came to a stop just 30 metres short of a major buckle in the line. After inspection, services south of Dunedin and north of
Kaikōura recommenced at 10:30 am that day. The
Main South Line, linking Christchurch with Dunedin, was given the all-clear and reopened, albeit with a 40 km/h speed restriction north of Ashburton, By the afternoon of Monday 6 September, the entire South Island rail network had reopened with the exception of the
Main North Line between Rangiora and Addington. Freight was shuttled by road between the two points, while the
TranzCoastal was replaced with a coach service. Kaiapoi's main road was closed for a few days. The quake caused damage to historic buildings in
Lyttelton, Christchurch's port town, including cracks in a church and the destruction of parts of a hotel. and some homes were extensively damaged.
Duvauchelle Hotel was also seriously affected. The earthquake was a wake-up call to many New Zealand residents. Two Dunedin supermarkets sold out of bottled water following the earthquake as people stocked up on emergency supplies. and
Progressive Enterprises (owners of
Countdown), which have their sole South Island distribution centres in Christchurch, had to ship essential products to their South Island stores from the North Island, while
Foodstuffs (owners of
New World and
Pak'n Save) had to ship to all their South Island stores from their Dunedin distribution centre.
Notable buildings Many of the most badly affected structures in both Christchurch and the surrounding districts were old buildings, including several notable landmarks.
Heritage New Zealand board member Anna Crighton said the earthquake had been "unbelievably destructive." The historic homesteads of Hororata and
Homebush inland from Christchurch were both extensively damaged, as were
Ohinetahi homestead and
Godley House on
Banks Peninsula. Homebush, located four kilometres from
Glentunnel and only 15 kilometres from the earthquake's epicentre, was the historic home of the Deans family, one of the Canterbury Region's pioneer settler families, but was so extensively damaged that it has been described as being "practically in ruins". The seven-storey
Manchester Courts (or MLC Building), located at the busy intersection of Manchester and Hereford Streets, was extensively damaged. It was the tallest commercial building in Christchurch when it was built in 1905–06 for the New Zealand Express Company, and blended
1890s Chicago Skyscraper style with English Edwardian architecture. The building had a
Category One Historic Places trust classification, but was deemed unsafe and was one of just two historic CBD buildings the City Council initially proposed for immediate demolition. That decision was reversed hours later when the building's owner proposed to dismantle the building over several weeks. Demolition began on 19 October 2010 and was continuing in late January. The 1911 Anglican church of
St. John's in
Hororata, five kilometres south of
Glentunnel, was extensively damaged when part of its tower collapsed. The port town of
Lyttelton's most notable building, the 1876
Timeball station, was also affected by the earthquake, though strengthening work completed in 2005 may have saved it from further damage. The Valley Inn Tavern in
Heathcote, built in 1877, survived the initial quake, but had to be torn down after the large 5.1 magnitude aftershock on 8 September.
Lincoln's historic 1883 public house, The Famous Grouse, was also irreparably damaged and was demolished within days of the earthquake. after the 2010 Canterbury earthquake, with props holding the frontage up (It was later destroyed in the 22 February aftershock). Many of Christchurch's major landmarks survived intact, including the
Canterbury Provincial Council Buildings, the
Anglican cathedral, and
Christ's College. The
Catholic Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament (Christchurch Basilica) also survived, although it suffered severe structural damage and also had some windows broken. The central city's iconic
Christchurch Press building also survived with only minor damage. Most modern buildings performed as they were designed to do, preserving life rather than keeping the interior in good order. The City Council's own new Civic Building sustained some interior damage, mainly to fixtures and fittings that delayed it being reopened for a week. Others, such as the city's
International Antarctic Centre and
Christchurch Art Gallery, the latter of which served as the Civil Defence Headquarters during the earthquake aftermath, suffered little or no damage and were able to be used immediately.
Christchurch Arts Centre, housed in the former Canterbury College buildings, was less fortunate, with moderate damage to the Great Hall, the Clocktower, and the Observatory. Also, as many of the bookshelves in the main library were toppled, with repairs expected to take until Christmas, the university arranged electronic access to many academic publishers databases for students about to sit exams. The
Oxford Terrace Baptist Church, constructed 1881–1882, was extensively damaged. Several other Christchurch area churches also suffered serious damage, including St. Mary's Anglican church in
Merivale, St. John's Anglican church in Latimer Square, and the Rugby Street Methodist church. The city's Repertory Theatre, on Kilmore Street in the central city, was reported to be extensively damaged and may be beyond repair, however the Repertory Theatre website notes "Beneath the rubble the lower façade is intact with not even a broken window. Further into the theatre everything was undisturbed; the auditorium, stage area, fly tower and dressing rooms intact. The historic proscenium undamaged." Several notable buildings in the
Timaru area, southwest of Christchurch, were also badly affected. A pinnacle on the tower of St Mary's Anglican Church tower fell to the ground, and the recently restored tower itself sustained "significant cracking". The spire of St. Joseph's Catholic Church in
Temuka was also shifted by the earthquake, leaving it precariously balanced, and the town's historic Royal Hotel was also damaged. Heritage experts urged building owners not to hastily demolish their buildings. The mayor warned of significant penalties for demolishing buildings without consent, and launched a fund to help repair historic buildings damaged by the quake. The Government allocated NZ$10 million towards restoration of such buildings a few days later.
Liquefaction A feature of the quake was the damage caused by
soil liquefaction. This was particularly the case in the riverside areas of
Avonside,
Dallington,
Burwood,
Avondale, and
Kaiapoi, and in river delta areas near
Bexley,
Brooklands,
Spencerville,
Pines Beach, and
Kairaki, with other areas being affected to a substantially lesser degree or not at all. Damage from liquefaction may have been worsened by the high water table from a wet winter. Liquefaction can also cause buried pipes to float up to the surface. This has caused problems for the gravity-fed sewer system, which may need to be completely rebuilt in some areas. While the problem had long been well understood by planners, it is not clear that the public understood it as well, or that it widely influenced development, buying or building decisions. Liquefaction risk at the
Pegasus Town site was identified in 2005, so the developers spent approximately $20 million on soil compaction, and the ground there held firm during the quake. This was ascribed to the fact that the quake happened in the early hours of a Saturday morning, when most people were asleep in
timber-framed homes, and "...there would almost certainly have been many deaths and serious injuries had it happened during a busy time of the day...". Another important factor was building practices which took earthquakes into account, starting after the
1848 Marlborough earthquake and the
1855 Wairarapa earthquake, both of which badly affected Wellington. which have since been progressively updated. By contrast, Haiti's much lower standard codes were poorly enforced and many buildings were made of hand-made non-reinforced concrete, which is extremely vulnerable to seismic damage. Ground shaking in populated areas of Canterbury was also generally less strong than for the Haiti quake. ==Emergency response and relief efforts==