Christchurch office status after earthquake

Thanks to our many friends, clients and colleagues who have sent us messages of support over the last week, since Saturday morning's big (7.1) earthquake in Canterbury. All ViaStrada staff are well, but some have sustained (mostly minor) damage to house contents, houses or gardens.

On Tuesday 7 September after the Link Centre (which houses our Christchurch office) was declared safe, some of us walked up the stairs to the 6th floor, not keen to trust the lifts or the risk of an aftershock disabling them. We were quite lucky - there's no apparent damage to our building but there are still quite a few files in untidy heaps over the floors. Nothing appears to be broken. The building next to us (also about seven stories high) has multiple broken windows.

Our main computer server was out of commission for two days and we may have lost a few e-mails sent between Saturday morning and Monday afternoon. Apparently, servers don't like to be shaken violently!

We are still experiencing mostly-minor aftershocks, but are now back in the office (since Monday 13 September), having lost a week of work.

Regards from the ViaStrada Christchurch team.