Many parts of central Christchurch are unrecognisable now

Christchurch mayor Lianne Dalziel was born and raised in the city she now represents. But she finds it hard to describe how it has changed since the earthquake.

“I don’t know whether it’s a post-disaster thing,” Dalziel says. “But for me, it’s sometimes hard to remember what was there before.”

A minute’s silence is to be observed at 12.51pm, exactly 10 years after the quake struck the New Zealand city

New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, is to lead tributes for the 185 people who lost their lives 10 years ago in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake.

First responders and community members will read each of their names at a memorial service held on Monday in the heart of the city at the Canterbury Earthquake National Memorial.

While new buildings have sprung up around it, the ruined cathedral has long been a painful reminder of the earthquake

In the months, then years, after the Christchurch earthquake, it was not Sue Spigel’s mind that needed healing, but her spirit.

What worked was her home high on the hillside above Governors Bay, where Spigel, 74, and her husband, Bob, have lived for 20 years. “It was this place … being here, cocooned from the rest of the agony that was going on, that really helped,” she says, sat with her back to a large window framing bush, sky and sea.