Ōtautahi / Christchurch Daily Photo

House demolitions around the hill suburbs are starting to be an all too familiar sight. There have been a few demolished in our neighbourhood already, but as the work of taking down the CBD buildings becomes less intensive it seems residential buildings are now coming down at a much faster rate. It’s quite weird to go out for a walk and discover a house has disappeared in the few weeks since I last went on the same walking route. On my walk today, I met a chap who lived not far from the house pictured. He pointed out at least 3 other homes near his that would probably be demolished. He and his wife had a very lucky escape on February 22nd – they were in the PGC building for a meeting that was scheduled to finish at about the same time as the quake hit. But someone couldn’t make the meeting so they went home. I’d have bought a lotto ticket the next day if that was me. There must be thousands of stories like that – in fact there is even a website http://www.quakestories.govt.nz where you can read them.