By Source Asia
Publication Date: 2026-04-20 22:57:00
Earthquake in Christchurch
The NZGD was founded following the devastating Christchurch earthquake in February 2011. In total, 185 people died, thousands were displaced and much of the city center’s infrastructure was severely damaged.
Engineers involved in reconstruction efforts urgently needed data about subsurface conditions to make important decisions, such as whether a structure could be safely repaired or restored or whether it needed to be completely demolished.
Ellis-Garland recalled working on about 4,000 appraisals for homes that needed to be rebuilt. “It’s delicate work when people are displaced and so we had to do our job very quickly,” she said.
However, compiling this data was challenging.
“It can be quite fragmented,” said Beca CEO Amelia Linzey.
She explained that the results of underground scans or tests are collected by various agencies or private developers when a site is being built. Since the engineers didn’t have access to this data, they had to…
