KUALA LUMPUR: PAS deputy president Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Samsuri Mokhtar has officially been appointed Perikatan Nasional chairman, taking over from Bersatu president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.
Rugby players observe a minute’s silence to remember victims of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. - Photo: AFP WELLINGTON: The New Zealand city of Christchurch marked on Sunday the 15th anniversary of the devastating 2011 earthquake that claimed 185 lives and injured thousands.
The victims included 115 who died in the collapse of the six-storey Canterbury Television Building when the 6.3-magnitude quake struck, including 28 Japanese studying English at a language school on the building’s third floor. A memorial service for bereaved families was held at Avonhead Memorial Cemetery early in the day, followed by a public service at the Canterbury Earthquake National Memorial where attendees observed a minute’s silence at 12.51pm to mark the moment the quake struck on Feb 22, 2011. Yuko Hirabayashi was a 28-year-old midwife from Shiga Prefecture who died in the collapse of the CTV building. Her parents visited Christchurch for the anniversary for the first time in several years. Her mother, Chizuru Hirabayashi, 67, said she is not sure when they will next be able to come as they get older. “We wanted to visit at this milestone and draw a line under things. We want to honour our daughter, who lived boldly and briefly,” she said. Kazuo and Seiko Horita, from Japan’s Toyama Prefecture, whose 19-year-old daughter, Megumi, also died in the collapse, visited Christchurch for the first time in two years for the anniversary. Christchurch Mayor Phil Mauger told Kyodo News after the service that the city has learnt a lot from the disaster, constructing more earthquake-resilient buildings and establishing an Emergency Operations Centre to improve interagency coordination in the event of a future disaster.However, 15 years on from the quake, frustration remains for some bereaved families over the ongoing fight for justice after numerous delays. Maan Alkaisi, spokesman for the CTV Families Group, said ahead of the anniversary that “the story of the CTV building will never end until justice is done”. Alkaisi, 75, lost his wife, Maysoon Abbas, in the collapse and has been campaigning for justice ever since. “It’s been a long time since this happened, but it still hurts us after all these years,” said Alkaisi. Legal battles are still ongoing over the attempt by the country’s professional engineering body to hold the owner of the engineering firm that designed the building, Alan Reay, accountable for the structural deficiencies blamed for its collapse. In 2024, an Engineering New Zealand disciplinary committee upheld a longstanding complaint against Reay, finding that he knew the employee who designed the building lacked the necessary experience to do so, and failed to provide adequate supervision despite this knowledge. The committee ordered Reay be admonished, fined NZ$750 and pay costs of NZ$1,000 related to resolving the complaint, the maximum amounts allowed under the body’s rules at the time the building was constructed. While the decision brought some satisfaction for Alkaisi and other bereaved families, he said it was not the full satisfaction of holding Reay legally responsible. Despite identifying “significant deficiencies” in the building’s design during their investigation, the police in 2017 decided not to pursue a criminal prosecution on the advice of the government’s legal advisers, citing a lack of evidence to secure a conviction in court. Reay has requested a judicial review of the ENZ committee’s decision, but a hearing has yet to be scheduled after further delays caused by disputes over the disclosure of documents for the matter. - AFP
Christchurch Earthquake Anniversary 185 Lives Canterbury Television Building Japanese Students Avonhead Memorial Cemetery Canterbury Earthquake National Memorial Yuko Hirabayashi Maan Alkaisi Alan Reay
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