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Earthquakes don’t kill people; buildings do. And those lovely decorative bits are the first to fall

In an article on The Conversation, Associate Professor Ann L Brower shares her own experiences of the Christchurch Earthquakes, which led her to put pressure on the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. The Ministry listened to her advice which would later be known as the ‘Brower Amendment” and now she is asking Australians to do the same.

Emergency workers on Colombo Street in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake. Mark Baker/AP

On February 22 2011, there were nine of us on a red bus from Sumner to Canterbury University in Christchurch. At 12.51, the unreinforced brick facade of 605 Colombo Street crushed our bus and four pedestrians. I felt brick after brick land on my left hip, and wondered how long I would last.

I’m the only one left — the lucky thirteenth.

I was taken to hospital on the back of a stranger’s truck. I broke more bones than the surgeons were willing to count, spent two months in hospital, and six months off work. More than a decade later, I feel the earthquake in every step.

During that earthquake, 16 people were killed just on that one block of Christchurch’s main street. Melbourne and country Victoria are full of places just like it, with brick facades, parapets and gables.

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