New Zealand quake survivors share their stories 10 years on

Ten years after a magnitude 6.3 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, killed 185 people and devastated the city, some of those profoundly affected are sharing their journeys. One woman channeled her anger to ensure buildings are safer, and others have found peace after heartbreaking losses.

Ann Brower was the sole survivor from a bus crushed under a building facade. After recovering from her injuries, she successfully fought for changes to building regulations. Brower was taking a bus from the seaside suburb of Sumner into the central city when the earthquake struck.

Bricks rained down as a building facade collapsed, crushing the roof of the bus and killing all 12 others on board, as well as four more people nearby. Brower was in excruciating pain, pinned under the collapsed roof. The pressure kept building until her pelvis snapped and she passed out.

Originally from North Carolina, Brower, an associate professor of environmental science, had been shaken awake years earlier by the 1994 Los Angeles quake when she was living in Claremont, California. In Christchurch, she awoke on the bus, realizing she was trapped and alone. 

People eventually came to dig through the rubble, pulling up the roof with their bare hands, talking to her about fishing, asking her about her hopes and dreams, anything to take her mind off what was happening. Strangers took her in the back of a truck to a hospital, where she would stay for two months.

After surgeries and rehabilitation, she was finally able to walk again without crutches.She was furious to learn the city council had inspected the building after a previous earthquake five months earlier and found the facade was unsafe, but hadn't enforced a fix.

Brower also remains concerned after touring the U.S. that cities from Seattle to Charleston, South Carolina, face similar problems with their older buildings, which can lend character to cities but also danger.

In New Zealand, Brower wanted older buildings to be covered by building codes and for regulators to prioritize fixing those parts that would fall off first in a quake, like parapets and unreinforced masonry.

But she ran into resistance. She wrote opinion pieces, did radio and TV interviews but it seemed lawmakers wouldn't budge. She finally got a five-minute meeting with the minister in charge at the time, Nick Smith, and he ended up agreeing a higher priority was needed for unsafe facades.

In what lawmakers called the "Brower Amendment," New Zealand cut in half the time owners had to get dangerous buildings fixed. Smith called Brower a true New Zealand hero. Prue Taylor lost her husband Brian in the quake and was comforted by the kindness of a city in mourning.

After the earthquake, Taylor wasn't unduly worried at first when she didn't hear from her husband Brian. She knew he had a lunchtime meeting in town and loved to linger and chat, and he thought he would be busy helping people after the quake.

But it turned out Brian had left the meeting promptly that day to see off a group of Japanese students at the CTV building where he worked as director of the English language school King's Education.

The building collapsed, killing 115 people, including Brian.When Prue Taylor arrived at the building it was a surreal sight, a huge pile of rubble with smoke rising and an elevator shaft still standing. She stayed there with her son Hamish for hours as rescuers searched for survivors.

"It was hard to leave the place, not having found him or knowing whether he was alive or dead or anything about him," Taylor said. Brian and Prue met as undergraduates and had been married more than 40 years.

Prue was principal of Christchurch Girls' High School but she and Brian had been talking about retiring, about traveling more. After Brian died, Prue focused on work. Taylor remains angry about the construction of the CTV building, after an investigation found its design was fundamentally flawed and should never have been approved.

Jonathan Manning helped guide his teenage children through their grief after their mother Donna Manning was killed. Jonathan Manning had been keeping vigil near the collapsed CTV building with his children Kent, who was 15 at the time, and Liz, 18, when a police officer told them she had horrible news.

"That's the moment when it really sunk in for all three of us. The kids fell apart. I did, too,"  Jonathan Manning said. Jonathan and Donna, a television presenter and producer, had separated nine years earlier. Now Jonathan felt the responsibility of helping guide his children through their grief. He wished he could shield them from it but knew he couldn't.

He rented a place so they could all live together, something Liz initially opposed but eventually accepted.He said the next two years were tough, as Kent finished high school and Liz ventured into paid work. "They very much struggled in a fog, in a malaise," Manning said.

And then over time, slowly, things just began to move forward and pick up. Grief is a very personal journey, a long journey, and recovery takes time," he added. Manning, who works with bequests at the Salvation Army, said he's incredibly proud of the adults his children have become.

Liz is now living in Western Australia, studying to be a counselor, and engaged to be married and Kent is an apprentice joiner in Christchurch and has just bought his first home with his partner.

Manning says he's grateful to his family and friends, and Donna's siblings, who have helped them since the quake, and to people from around the world who contributed to a trust fund which helped the kids get started in their adult lives. He thinks his children have become more empathetic since the tragedy. Each anniversary brings up emotions, he says, but these days they are all feeling more at peace.

Image: AP