Aftershocks add billions in damage

Photo / Simon Baker

Monday's Christchurch aftershocks are judged to have added as much as $6 billion in new damage, international catastrophe modelling firm EQECAT has advised the insurance industry.

The new estimate comes on top of the $15 billion to $20 billion in costs already identified, and is despite early indications that the worst affected areas were those which had already suffered extensive damage in earlier quakes.

What you should know

- Two thousand Cantabrians without power
- 15 per cent of the city without water
- 23 stayed in Cowles Stadium overnight
- Fifty schools to reopen today
- University of Canterbury and Christchurch Polytechnic Madras Street and Sullivan Avenue Campuses to open Monday
- 63 roads closed or partially close, 18 more restricted access
- The Christchurch Cathedral, Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament and Timeball Station suffered further damage, narrowing the chances of rebuild
- Another 100 CBD buildings to be demolished urgently, 1000 in total
- Volunteer Student Army mobilised for eastern suburbs

Advisen FPN, an international alert service, judged the EQECAT estimate sufficiently important to make an urgent release to its insurance broker membership.

"This latest event is expected to cause an additional US$3 billion to US$5 billion in insured losses to the region," EQECAT's statement said, approximately $3.6 billion to $6 billion.

Monday's 6.3 magnitude quake constituted the twelfth quake classified as a separate event for insurance purposes since the Sept. 3 earthquake that first shook the country's second city.

The greatest damage was done on February 22, in a 6.1 magnitude aftershock.

Insurance experts in New Zealand are already warning that some parts of Christchurch may become uninsurable, with signs that the global reinsurance market is now struggling to cope with the extent of its exposure to earthquake risk in this country.