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Airdate: The Christchurch Earthquake: When a City Falls

This documentary on the earthquakes of Christchurch is raw, powerful and compelling.

2013-02-19_0049This Friday night SBS screens a remarkable doumentary that captures the devastation an the mood of Christchurch following a swathe of earthquakes and tremors that began in 2010.

Some of the footage is heart-breaking stuff, and it brings home that it was not just a single big quake, but the on-going fear that rippled through this city. Compelling stuff.

This powerful documentary follows the lives of the residents of Christchurch in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake which killed 182 people and destroyed many homes and businesses.

Directed by Gerard Smythe, The Christchurch Earthquake: When a City Falls began as a project to document the damage done to Christchurch by the September 2010 earthquake, and the subsequent recovery effort in the months that followed. In February 2011, when the devastating magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck, Smythe’s project became an important documentation of a community turned upside down.

Featuring dramatic footage from when the earthquake struck as well as the moments afterwards, the program is a poignant look at the community’s response to one of New Zealand’s worst natural disasters.
The film tells the story of the people of Christchurch and how they survived and coped following the earthquake. Featuring people from the worst-hit areas of the city, it finds out what they lost, how they
managed and what they did to make things better.

The Christchurch Earthquake: When a City Falls is an uplifting story of hope as the human spirit triumphs over terrible adversity.

Friday, 22 February at 8.30pm on SBS ONE.

3 Responses

  1. My mother and brother and his family went through both quakes, my mother suffers anxiety whenever there is a shake (and they still happen quite often just not as big). I was there a month before the Feb 2011 one. I felt several quakes, one woke me up around 6am one morning with the bed shaking like someone was jumping on it :O

  2. Looking forward to this…matter of fact…wouldn’t mind someone focusing right on present day in Christchurch..they still must be on knife edge..some coping,some just ready to pack it up.

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