Ten years after the New Zealand earthquake, there is no longer any justice for the victims of the building’s collapse

Monday marks ten years since the Christchurch earthquake on February 22, 2011, which killed 185 people. Thousands of buildings were destroyed or severely damaged, and entire suburbs in the city’s working-class east, an area inhabited by 10,000 people, were left uninhabitable and ultimately deserted, with all homes demolished.

Thousands of homeowners have spent years fighting with private insurance companies and government agencies to repair or rebuild their properties. Some have received no payments a decade after the disaster.

The death toll was not just the product of an inevitable natural disaster. Almost two-thirds of lives, 115 people, were lost in the CTV (Canterbury Television) building, which collapsed in seconds due to its extremely insecure design. New Zealand is famous for frequent earthquakes, yet thousands of buildings were not constructed to withstand a severe jolt, due to decades of deregulation and the absence of government oversight.

CTV Building before the earthquake (Source: Wikipedia)

Among the CTV victims were medical center workers and Canterbury TV employees, as well as teachers and 64 foreign students at King’s Education Language School, from Japan, China, the Philippines, Thailand and South Korea.

Both the previous National Party government and the current Labor government, along with the police and the Crown Law (Senior State Attorney), have prevented anyone from holding anyone responsible for the collapse.

Successive councils and governments themselves have a responsibility to create an environment free of controls that inevitably leads to such tragedies. Starting with the Labor government in the 1980s, which was in office during the construction of the CTV building, both major parties eliminated safety standards across mining, construction, and other industries, allowing for “self-regulation” by companies.

A property commission of inquiry found in 2012 that “a building permit should not be issued” by Christchurch City Council in 1986, due to serious design flaws. And there were more shortcomings in the construction. Dr. Alan Ray, whose firm was in charge of the construction, hired an unqualified engineer, David Harding, who had never worked on a multi-storey building before, and was not under Rey’s supervision.

Among other findings, the committee noted that there are “major weaknesses in all beam connections” and that “the connections between the floorboards and the north wall assembly do not comply with basic engineering principles.” But the commission does not have the authority to hold anyone accountable.

CTV building ruins. Collapsed in seconds 22 February 2011, leaving only the northern wall, killing 115 people. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Police launched a criminal investigation in 2014 and hired Beca Engineering, which issued a lengthy report that identified several design failures. In May 2017, police finally concluded their investigation and recommended that both Ray and Harding be tried for manslaughter. However, the government’s deputy attorney general, Brendan Horsley, intervened, and argued not to press charges. On November 30, 2017, the police announced that there would be no prosecution.

University of Canterbury engineering professor Maan Al-Qaisi, whose wife Dr. Maysoon Abbas died in the building, is the spokesperson for the CTV Families Group, which continues to demand justice for the victims.

Al-Qaisi told the World Socialist Web site that Horsley had made a “disgraceful” argument that there was no “public interest” in trying anyone, and that the trial would cost millions of dollars. “So the lives of 115 people are not worth the experience, because it is too expensive for him.” Although there was a mountain of evidence that the building was a death trap, Horsley also argued that “there was no major departure from normal practice” in designing the building.

Al-Qaisi indicated that the multiple investigations, which included dozens of engineers, had identified more than 300 structural defects in the building, “but Mr. Horsley ignored all this and believes that he knows more than all these experts in this field.”

In a letter to the families of Japanese victims in 2019, Horsley added, as an additional reason not to press charges, that Ria was a “good man” person.

Al-Qaisi explained, “What we wanted was an experiment. Let everyone come, and let all evidence be examined and examined. Leave.” [Reay] He defends himself according to the rule of law. They don’t want that. They want to go behind doors and make decisions, and nobody knows exactly how they reach those decisions. “

Earth will begin

Family members met with Horsley, police officials, and other representatives of the Crown Act in December 2017. When Casey asked questions about dropping the criminal charges, Horsley replied, “You’re paying with blood.” Another family member replied that this was not true, and that the families wanted justice and to make sure such a disaster never happened again.

“This is Mr. Horsley’s mentality. He thought we were calling by blood, while Alan Ray is a good character that we chase. So he was so biased,” said Casey.

Ray had at least two opportunities to correct the building’s design flaws: First, when a council inspector raised concerns in 1986, Ray did not change anything, but he convinced the council to issue a building permit. Then, in 1990, defects were identified again during the sale of the building, and Ria only ordered some small business, which they failed to repair.

Al-Qaisi said, “The reason he did not do any treatment is that it will affect his reputation and include paying some money.” “That’s what really hurts us. We all lost those people for money, for a few thousand dollars that’s all they were saving. It wouldn’t be millions to make the design a little better, with a better beam shaft connection, with a better connection between the slab floors and the main north wall.” That would have saved the entire building. “

Alan Rhee and his wife remain major players in the construction industry. Their company, Engenium (formerly known as Alan Reay Consultants Ltd), is involved in several public and private projects, including a $ 200 million residential and retail complex in Epsom, Auckland.

Al-Qaisi said, “I was told several times: He is influential. Therefore, if a person has money and connections, he is above the law.”

Meanwhile, Brendan Horsley was promoted last year by the Labor-led government to the position of Inspector General of Intelligence and Security, one of the most sensitive positions in the state apparatus, and overseeing the country’s two spy agencies.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern rejected the CTV family’s request to appoint independent judges to investigate the police decision not to press charges. Ardern and the other ministers refused to speak with the families about their case.

In December 2020, Al-Qaisi announced that the families would submit an official request to the United Nations, alleging discrimination against them by the government. He told WSWS that they will “list all the abuse and all the injustice we have suffered from in the past 10 years. They want to cover up, I want the whole world to know what happened.”

Al-Qaisi concluded that the politicians “have no sympathy for the people” and only care what will help them in the upcoming elections. “They want the victims to be seen as vulnerable, cry, and to go ahead and believe whatever they tell you. All their support gives you a handkerchief to dry your tears.”

Anita Stewart, whose brother Andrew Bishop passed away in the CTV Building, at the age of 33, told WSWS: “I am frustrated by the lack of justice. Is there no one?” She indicated that Ree “is still making millions of dollars and saving. The owner has a lavish lifestyle that even the deceased occupants of the CTV building could not afford to dream about. “

Andrew worked for CTV as a photographer and was a volunteer for Sumner Lifeboat, a marine search and rescue operation. “I hope my brother wasn’t a victim of CTV. He died doing the job he lived for and with colleagues he called friends and family,” Anita said. “It often seems like no one cares anymore except for our grief-stricken group. The more support our group receives, the stronger our foundation will be in the struggle for the justice our loved ones deserve. “

The horrific situation the CTV families face is comparable to the decade-long struggle for justice by the families of 29 men who died in the Pike River coal mine disaster. Al-Qaisi said, “We share similar experiences, similar fears and similar injustice.” The mine exploded in November 2010 after the company ignored multiple warnings that it was a death trap. No one has been held accountable yet.

Both cases, such as the official response to the 2017 Grenville Tower fire in London, which killed 72 people, are examples of class justice. The legal system is manipulated to benefit the wealthy and well-connected individuals and companies who are protected from accountability.

The preventable tragedies in Christchurch and Pike River, such as the millions of unnecessary deaths around the world due to the Coronavirus pandemic, are the result of an economic, capitalist system that puts profit before workers’ safety and lives.

Billions of dollars are urgently needed to strengthen and reconstruct buildings across the country to prepare them for natural disasters. This, in turn, requires a struggle for the socialist reorganization of society, placing the enormous resources of banks and major industries under public ownership and democratic workers’ control, to be used in the interest of human need.

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