Brownlee: Quake land damage not extensive

Minister of Economic Development Gerry Brownlee. Photo / Sarah Ivey

Earthquake co-ordination minister Gerry Brownlee says there are few signs of widespread permanent damage to housing land in Christchurch.

He said those residents most in limbo over insurance were likely to have land damage.

"The prospect of people losing their land is pretty slim. In the end people will be properly compensated if there is a loss of land but our expectation is that the majority of land will be fine and there'll be no ongoing issues," he said in Auckland this morning.

Mr Brownlee is the minister responsible for coordinating the Government's response to the earthquake which struck just over a fortnight ago.

"The first thing we have to do is get a proper geo-tech report on the shape of the land has been damaged. That will have an effect on the other houses. The early indications are that land damage is not extensive and not likely to be overly problematic."

The city's eastern suburbs were worst affected by land damage.

Mr Brownlee said once geo-technical surveys had been done, the outlook for repairing houses would be much clearer.

"At a time when we're still getting aftershocks even though they're diminishing quite quickly then repairing stuff wasn't the smartest thing to do," he said, speaking outside the New Zealand Petroleum Conference.