Latest posts by Martin Moodie (see all)
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The words say it all. A city broken. But not destroyed.
My home town of Christchurch is beginning the slow, painful comeback after the devastation wreaked by the big earthquakes of the past year and thousands of aftershocks. As these pictures published this week of the cordoned-off Central Business District show, the damage is catastrophic.
Next month its people will celebrate the beginning of the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand, an event of huge magnitude in a country where rugby is more of a religion than a sporting passion.
But there won’t be any games in Christchurch. The city’s stadium has been wrecked and all the pool matches and quarter-finals due to take place there have been moved elsewhere around the country.
I’m delighted to report that the New Zealand Red Cross 2011 Earthquake Appeal (to which The Moodie Report donated NZ$20,000) has raised an amazing NZ$67 million (US$56 million) so far. Every cent is spent on people and communities affected by the February 2011 quake.
Others in our industry such as HMSHost and JR Duty Free and Cecil Macdonald & Co Chairman John Sankey, among many others, have given generously. Christchurch Airport is back in full swing, along with its concessionaires, in the lovely new terminal building (below) and will, like the city, go from strength to strength.
I’ll be down in New Zealand for the last month of the World Cup (praying in appropriately religious style for an All Blacks’ victory) and I plan to spend much of that time in Christchurch – rugby or no rugby.
Thank you to those who gave so kindly to the appeal.