Wednesday, March 9, 2011

A New Zealand city destroyed — and then rebuilt



A New Zealand city destroyed — and then rebuilt: Jim Byers, The Toronto star






The 7.8 magnitude quake that wreaked havoc on this seaside town on New Zealand’s North Island destroyed much of the small, innocent city. But folks from all the world heeded the call for aid, and Napier was rebuilt in astonishing time. Not only rebuilt, but rebuilt almost entirely in the architectural style of the time—Art Deco. Kathy Hill, who leads tours for the Art Deco Trust in Napier, painted a grim picture of the 1931 quake as she lead folks about the town a mere days before the Christchurch quake. “The lagoons basically rose two meters,” she said. “Millions of fish were stranded on what suddenly was dry land. Buildings collapsed. Two hundred and fifty six people died.” Many are actual Art Deco style, while others are Spanish Mission or Classical Revival. Less than 48 hours later, the world caved in on Christchurch, much as it had on Napier 80 years and 19 days before.






I think is great that the City is being rebuild and fixed up. I think it's great how fast awareness was put out, but more importantly how fast people reacted and helped out. It still think that the earthquake was terrible and probably ruined a lot of people's lives, but it's important that they stay positive and focus of the good stuff and just move forward from this.






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