The following is a post pertaining to reinforced concrete buildings by Weng Yuen Kam for the NZSEE. To see the actual post, please follow this link.

DAY 03 FIELD REPORT FROM THE CHRISTCHURCH 22 Feb 2011 6.3M_w Earthquake: Critically-Damaged Multi-storey RC buildings

1. Introduction to Day 03 Activities

While the Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) activities are still the priority concern of the emergency services, the focus of building inspection teams (structural engineers and building officials) have switched into welfare and services recovery mode. The building inspection teams were coordinated by the territorial authorities (in this case, the Christchurch City Council).

The majority of the building inspection teams were sent out to the residential suburbs to identify dangerous and inhabitable residential buildings. Several building inspection teams were tasked to inspect critical infrastructure buildings (telecommunication buildings, emergency shelters, public buildings etc). A support role – welfare officers – was also introduced as part of the emergency response services. Welfare officers are providing support and liaison services to building/services owners.

As I regained access to my research documents at the university building earlier today, I discovered the structural drawings of the collapsed Pyne Gould Corp (PGC) building amongst the UoC Retrofit Project collection of pre-1970s RC buildings drawings. This was immediately delivered to the USAR engineers at the PGC rescue/recovery site.

2. Preliminary Observation of the Pyne Gould Copr Building

3. Preliminary Observation of the Hotel Grand Chancellor Building

4. CONCLUSION

The collapse of the Pyne Gould Corp Building and the imminent repair or demolition of the Grand Chancellor Hotel are amongst the most significant structural failures from the Christchurch 22^nd Feb 2011 earthquake, evident from the media attention.This very preliminary field report is prepared to provide immediate and factual information for interested parties. However, this is a draft document and will be subjected to future amendments/corrections.

Please kindly acknowledged for the use of any photographs. The report above is not peer-reviewed. Please kindly forward your thoughts/comments to me at weng.kam@canterbury.ac.nz .

*****Download the full preliminary report here.*****

Regards, Weng Yuen Kam

Research Associate (to Assoc Prof Stefano Pampanin),

Dept of Civil and Natural Resources Eng, Uni.of Canterbury