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An aerial shot of the destroyed CTV building - Source: ONE News -
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The owners of the Canterbury Television (CTV) building in Christchurch are welcoming a government inquiry into why the building collapsed in last Tuesday's 6.3 magnitude earthquake.
A spokesman for the two South Island families that owned the 20-year-old six-storey building said the families are "absolutely devastated and distraught" over the catastrophic collapse of the building in which a large number of people lost their lives.
The spokesman, Ken Jones of the Christchurch law firm White Fox
Jones, said because of the impending government inquiry, the owners
are unable to make any detailed statement about the tragedy.
"They offer their most sincere condolences to the families of those
who lost their loved ones and to those who were injured," Jones
said.
"They wish to assure everybody they will co-operate to the fullest with the inquiry into the collapse of this modern building.
"This includes the provision of all engineers' and other reports commissioned and acted on since the 4 September 2010 earthquake."
The building has been managed on behalf of the owners since they purchased it in 1991, soon after its construction.
Jones said the building was green-stickered by the Christchurch City Council following the 7.1 magnitude September earthquake.
This meant an inspection had been carried out by the City Council and the building deemed secure for occupation.
The property manager had then commissioned a detailed structural engineers' report that raised no issues regarding the structural integrity of the building.
The report recommended internal and external work be undertaken to repair superficial damage to the building fabric sustained in the earthquake and its immediate aftershocks, Jones said.
"This work was underway at the time of the building's collapse.
"The 22 February 2011 earthquake appears to have generated
unusual forces that relatively modern buildings built to recent
seismic standards were not able to withstand."
An inquiry was therefore very important to establish why the
building collapsed, so that something like this could not happen
again, Jones said.
Council defends assessment
Earlier today, Christchurch City Council defended the assessment of the CTV building after the September 4 earthquake.
Council buildings manager Steve McCarthy said the building was given a green placard by council structural engineers after the 7.1 magnitude quake.
The assessment meant the building was judged safe for workers to re-enter.
McCarthy said he stood by that inspection and said that no-one could have predicted the force that last Tuesday's quake produced.
"What mother nature did to us last Tuesday was to deliver an earthquake that exceeded design standards, and it exceeded them by 50%," he said.
"The unique thing about this earthquake is that it lifted the ground and the buildings and then dumped it at two times the force of gravity."
The operation to recover bodies from the building has now been limited to daylight hours.
Fire Service spokesman Russell Wood said the operation was too complicated to be undertaken at night.
Police have abandoned hope of finding any survivors in the building.
-With Newstalk ZB
