The view in the red zone

A lot of people who were at church on Sunday told me that they were going in to say goodbye to the cathedral that afternoon. This was the last weekend when people could have access, via a restricted walk-way, to enter the red zone that surrounds the city centre before demolition of our cathedral begins. It was a sentiment repeated again and again: saying goodbye to the cathedral. Everyone that has spoken to me, whether church member or not, has said that it has to come down and a new one built. There is, if you read the press, a small minority who think that it should be repaired and restored.



The walkway, between wire fencing, runs down the centre of the empty roads. Buildings on each side are boarded up or being torn down or not there anymore.


A steady stream of people entered the walkway from an access point at the corner of Lichfield and Colombo Streets. Two volunteers carefully counted on clickers the number of people who went in and went out. Sobering to realize that is done as a safety precaution in case of a major aftershock while people are in the red zone.

I couldn't tell you what was there before, but it is now an empty space where buildings once stood.


and beside the empty lot was this silhouette of the building left imprinted on the walls of the building still standing next door.


The fencing created a space between the crowds and the front of the cathedral, again, a safety precaution. The place is pretty precarious.


It's early autumn as you can see by the colour of the trees. This is what is left of the cathedral spire.


The very top of the spire toppled off in the first of the February quakes and now lies in the Christchurch museum's earthquake exhibit


A close up the western wall to the left of the entrance to the cathedral.


The western face of the cathedral. The last time I was in the square was a summer day, December 2010, and I remember some workmen hoisting down the stone cross that used to sit at the apex of the Western wall above the rose window where there is now a gaping hole.


The south side of the cathedral


As one of the architects said, she is slowly shaking herself to pieces with every aftershock.


We now wait to see if a temporary cathedral will be constructed and where that will be, while this one is taken down to a height of 2-3 metres and as much of the contents removed as is safe to do so.