Bob Parker- February 22 | Canterbury Opinion | Local Voices from Canterbury, New Zealand

This week is a time for us to remember those lost or injured in last February's earthquake and also to look forward to the future of our city with some hope.

The toll stands at 185 souls lost to the quake. People who got up on that beautiful summer's morning a year ago and who, like us all, were totally unaware of the tragedy pending. That fateful day we lost so many, some were crushed in collapsing buildings and others struck by falling rocks, most in places that were familiar to many of us. For their families this week is particularly poignant. Our thoughts are with them all.

There is another statistic, less well defined and strangely less well known. It is the numbers injured in the five major quakes, since the first which struck on the morning of September 4, 2010, and the more than 10,000 aftershocks since. Hospital records show only part of the scale of the event. Perhaps between 250 to 300 people were treated for serious physical trauma in the hours following the February 6.3-magnitude quake.

There are so many heart-rending stories of people who will spend their lives confined to a wheelchair or coping with a disability. Their lives certainly have been changed forever. We appreciate the difficulties they encounter every day coping with a new way of life. We care.

Everyone in this city carries to a greater or lesser degree some trauma from these times. Many have lost their homes, their jobs and are now having to embark in a totally different direction. Watching how people have coped, particularly the elderly, their homes broken leaving behind a life-time of memories, is inspirational.

This week we come together to remember those lost, but also to look ahead to the future as a community. We also recognise those in our communities who were the heroes of the quakes.

We have been through so much together. We have risen to the occasion. Based on our shared tragedies, there is a greater depth, a greater strength and a deeper understanding and belief in the real values that are important to the survival of our city. Each of us has found that even in the worst of times, we could go further, dig deeper, and draw on more inner strength than many of us knew we had.

We will overcome this event, the quakes will stop, and our new suburban communities will grow to replace the areas abandoned. A new city centre that is safe, green and a tribute to the aspirations of all of those whom we have lost will replace the carnage of the quakes and demolitions.

We will never give up.