NZ’s World-leading Quake Archive Adds More Government Content Ahead Of 10th Anniversary

Free to use, CEISMIC is an award-winning public, online collection of tens of thousands of stories, video, audio, documents and images relating to the Canterbury earthquake sequence, created by and based at the University of Canterbury. It has absorbed the archives of 36 government, community and research organisations.

This wide-ranging taonga includes GPS Boomerang’s aerial photos, the Festival of Transitional Architecture (FESTA) , the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC)’s Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Learning Legacy, and, mostly recently, the Ministry of Culture and Heritage Quakestories archive [see full list below].

The Ministry of Culture and Heritage archive is now live to view online and includes some 500 stories and 200 photographs.

For example, personal stories from this archive include:

• Amanda Fuller, who was trapped in the PGC building and lost several fingers to crush damage, talks about how she feels lucky compared to people more badly injured. Find her story here>
• Greg Cole was one of the rescuers at the PGC building and saw it collapse from his workplace across the river. Find his story here>

Another component of CEISMIC is QuakeBox, a project that recorded the stories of 750 people around Christchurch after the earthquakes. The UC team is now conducting a follow-up and has re-interviewed almost 120 of the original interviewees to track their progress and wide-ranging post-earthquakes experiences. [see https://quakestudies.canterbury.ac.nz/store/collection/235]

Another archive is Movers and Shakers: Women’s Stories from the Christchurch Earthquakes. [see https://quakestudies.canterbury.ac.nz/store/object/194937]

The CEISMIC consortium, led by UC, includes the National Library, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, Christchurch City Libraries, Te Papa, Canterbury Museum, and the Ngāi Tahu Research Centre at UC.

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