Local and global responses to disaster: #eqnz and the Christchurch earthquake

Building on innovative frameworks for analysing and visualising the tweet data available from Twitter, developed by the authors, this paper examines the patterns of tweeting activity that occurred during and after the Feb, 2011 Christchurch earthquake. Local and global responses to the disaster were organised around the pre-existing hashtag #eqnz, which averaged some 100 tweets per minute in the hours following the earthquake. The paper identifies the key contributors to the #eqnz network and shows the key themes of their messages. Emerging from this analysis is a more detailed understanding of Twitter and other social media as key elements in the overall ecology of the media forms used for crisis communication. Such uses point both to the importance of social media as a tool for affected communities to self-organise their disaster response and recovery activities, and as a tool for emergency management services to disseminate key information and receive updates from local communities.

Lateral spreading-induced abutment rotation in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake: Observations and analysis

A series of strong earthquakes near Christchurch, New Zealand, occurred between September 2010 and December 2011, causing widespread liquefaction throughout the city's suburbs. Lateral spreading developed along the city's Avon River, damaging many of the bridges east of the city centre. The short-to medium-span bridges exhibited a similar pattern of deformation, involving back-rotation of their abutments and compression of their decks. By explicitly considering the rotational equilibrium of the abutments about their point of contact with the rigid bridge decks, it is shown that relatively small kinematic demands from the laterally spreading backfill soil are needed to initiate pile yielding, and that this mode of deformation should be taken into account in the design of the abutments and abutment piles.

Impact of average household income and damage exposure on post-earthquake distress and functioning: A community study following the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake.

Post-traumatic stress, depression and anxiety symptoms are common outcomes following earthquakes, and may persist for months and years. This study systematically examined the impact of neighbourhood damage exposure and average household income on psychological distress and functioning in 600 residents of Christchurch, New Zealand, 4–6 months after the fatal February, 2011 earthquake. Participants were from highly affected and relatively unaffected suburbs in low, medium and high average household income areas. The assessment battery included the Acute Stress Disorder Scale, the depression module of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7), along with single item measures of substance use, earthquake damage and impact, and disruptions in daily life and relationship functioning. Controlling for age, gender and social isolation, participants from low income areas were more likely to meet diagnostic cut-offs for depression and anxiety, and have more severe anxiety symptoms. Higher probabilities of acute stress, depression and anxiety diagnoses were evident in affected versus unaffected areas, and those in affected areas had more severe acute stress, depression and anxiety symptoms. An interaction between income and earthquake effect was found for depression, with those from the low and medium income affected suburbs more depressed. Those from low income areas were more likely, post-earthquake, to start psychiatric medication and increase smoking. There was a uniform increase in alcohol use across participants. Those from the low income affected suburb had greater general and relationship disruption post-quake. Average household income and damage exposure made unique contributions to earthquake-related distress and dysfunction.

Recovering from the earthquake : early childhood teachers and children collaboratively telling stories about their experiences

Purpose – Traumatic events can cause post-traumatic stress disorder due to the severity of the often unexpected events. The purpose of this paper is to reveal how conversations around lived experiences of traumatic events, such as the Christchurch earthquake in February 2011, can work as a strategy for people to come to terms with their experiences collaboratively. By encouraging young children to recall and tell of their earthquake stories with their early childhood teachers they can begin to respond, renew, and recover (Brown, 2012), and prevent or minimise more stress being developed. Design/methodology/approach – The study involved collecting data of the participating children taking turns to wear a wireless microphone where their interactions with each other and with teachers were video recorded over one week in November 2011. A total of eight hours and 21 minutes of footage was collected; four minutes and 19 seconds of that footage are presented and analysed in this paper. The footage was watched repeatedly and transcribed using conversation analysis methods (Sacks, 1995). Findings – Through analysing the detailed turn-taking utterances between teachers and children, the orderliness of the co-production of remembering is revealed to demonstrate that each member orients to being in agreement about what actually happened. These episodes of story telling between the teachers and children demonstrate how the teachers encourage the children to tell about their experiences through actively engaging in conversations with them about the earthquake. Originality/value – The conversation analysis approach used in this research was found to be useful in investigating aspects of disasters that the participants themselves remember as important and real. This approach offers a unique insight into understanding how the earthquake event was experienced and reflected on by young children and their teachers, and so can inform future policy and provision in post-disaster situations.

Living in a broken world : how young children's well-being is supported through playing out their earthquake experiences

The therapeutic value of play can be shown in spontaneous play situations following children’s experiences of traumatic events. Following the events of the Christchurch earthquakes in New Zealand in 2010 and 2011, an investigation was conducted of how children used the earthquake event as a catalyst in pretend play with peers and in discussions with teachers. Supporting children’s well-being is a focus area in New Zealand early childhood education as it is a strand of the national curriculum, Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education [MoE], 1996). In this article, children are observed engaging in pretend play episodes and with Learning Story books to explore personal reflections of the earthquake, prompting the children to make reference to things being ‘broken’ and needing 'fixing.' Analysis shows how the content of the pretend play experiences helped the children to come to terms with their experiences. Affording children time and interactional opportunities to play out and discuss traumatic experiences contributes to the psychological well-being of participants following a traumatic event.

Inferences on earthquake kinematic properties from data inversion: two different approaches

During my PhD, starting from the original formulations proposed by Bertrand et al., 2000 and Emolo & Zollo 2005, I developed inversion methods and applied then at different earthquakes. In particular large efforts have been devoted to the study of the model resolution and to the estimation of the model parameter errors. To study the source kinematic characteristics of the Christchurch earthquake we performed a joint inversion of strong-motion, GPS and InSAR data using a non-linear inversion method. Considering the complexity highlighted by superficial deformation data, we adopted a fault model consisting of two partially overlapping segments, with dimensions 15x11 and 7x7 km2, having different faulting styles. This two-fault model allows to better reconstruct the complex shape of the superficial deformation data. The total seismic moment resulting from the joint inversion is 3.0x1025 dyne.cm (Mw = 6.2) with an average rupture velocity of 2.0 km/s. Errors associated with the kinematic model have been estimated of around 20-30 %. The 2009 Aquila sequence was characterized by an intense aftershocks sequence that lasted several months. In this study we applied an inversion method that assumes as data the apparent Source Time Functions (aSTFs), to a Mw 4.0 aftershock of the Aquila sequence. The estimation of aSTFs was obtained using the deconvolution method proposed by Vallée et al., 2004. The inversion results show a heterogeneous slip distribution, characterized by two main slip patches located NW of the hypocenter, and a variable rupture velocity distribution (mean value of 2.5 km/s), showing a rupture front acceleration in between the two high slip zones. Errors of about 20% characterize the final estimated parameters.

Boundary conditions in physical model tests-the influence of deck pinning on the response of piled bridge abutments in laterally spreading soils

Physical models are widely used in the study of geotechnical earthquake engineering phenomena, and the comparison of modelling results to observations from field reconnaissance provides a transparent means of evaluating the design of our physical models. This paper compares centrifuge tests of pile groups in laterally spreading slopes with the response of piled bridge abutments in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. We show that the model foundation's fixity conditions strongly affect the success with which the mechanism of response of the real abutments is replicated in the tests. © 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers.

Everyday preschool talk about Christchurch earthquakes

This article investigates young children’s interactions with their peers and teachers following the events of the Christchurch earthquakes in New Zealand on September 2010 and February 2011. Drawing on conversation analysis and psychological literature, we focus on one outdoor excursion to visit a broken water pipe caused by the earthquake to show how the teacher and children mutually accomplished trouble telling and storying. A particular feature of talk was the use of pivotal utterances to transition from talking about the damaged environment, to talking about reflections of actual earthquake events. This article shows how teachers initiate and prompt children’s informal and spontaneous story telling as an interactional resource for discussing traumatic events.

Earthquake aftershock anxiety: An examination of psychosocial contributing factors and symptomatic outcomes.

This study examined the direct and indirect effects of cognitions and anxiety associated with aftershocks on psychological symptoms (anxiety, depression, acute stress) and daily functioning (general and relationship). Participants were 600 adults from Christchurch. Data collection was approximately four months after the fatal 2011 earthquake. Path analysis was used. Socioeconomic status was directly associated with appraisals of uncontrollability of response to aftershocks. These cognitions were directly related to aftershock anxiety, which heightened general anxiety, depression and acute stress symptoms. These symptoms were directly associated with relationship and general life dysfunction. Aftershock anxiety plays a significant role in ongoing psychological distress associated with earthquakes.

Residential property market performance in a declining market : Christchurch case study

The residential property market in New Zealand has been experiencing a boom and bubble period from 2001 through to mid 2007. Following a number of increases in the Official Cash Rate by the Reserve Bank and a decline in net migration numbers the housing market was perceived to be over-inflated and due for major correction.

At times of crisis, Twitter shines brightest

By any measure, 2011 was a year marked by disasters. In Australia, it began with major flooding which saw vast portions of the state of Queensland, including Brisbane and surrounding areas, under water. A significant earthquake caused massive destruction and serious loss of life in Christchurch, New Zealand. And a 9.0 quake off the Sendai coast caused an unprecedented tsunami in Japan and led to the Fukushima meltdown. All this before the end of March; later months would see a range of human-made crises from the Arab Spring to the London riots.