Christchurch – Three years after the earthquake

Our campers tour on the South Island of New Zealand took the lead 3,Five weeks to the end and we gave the campers in Christchurch at CampaSouth again. When Glen and Esther, a very nice Taiwanese-New Zealand couple, we have found a very nice room on AirBnB and spent two nights before we took farewell of New Zealand.
Christchurch is a beautiful city, However, it was quite badly damaged by two earthquakes in September 2010 and February 2011. Nearly 200 people were killed and several houses were destroyed. Even after 3 years you can still recognize the extent: countless buildings stand empty and are surrounded by barbed wire fences, where before there were houses are now barren open spaces, entire streets are blocked. In part, it acts like a ghost town, since the closed hotels, Restaurants, Shops, Homes and offices look like, as if they were just left only.
The Christ Church Cathedral was hit hard by the earthquake. We have heard, that the Church may need to be demolished even now.
However, the residents are trying to lead a normal life. In the city center, they have, for example, the Re:START Shoppingmall built from construction containers. Right next to it there is the Quakecity Exhibition on the earthquake in Christchurch. It was pretty depressing but also very interesting. In addition, there are projects like it Gap Filler (Filling the gap) to the resulting open spaces to revive again. Despite these terrible events and the consequences still apparent Christchurch is for us one of the most beautiful cities in New Zealand.