Central City Red Zone

The Central City Red Zone, also known as the CBD Red Zone, was a public exclusion zone in the Christchurch Central City implemented after the 22 February 2011 Christchurch earthquake. After February 2013, it was officially renamed the CBD Rebuild Zone by government agencies, but remained known as the Red Zone. It gradually shrank in size and the last cordons were removed on 30 June 2013, 859 days after the earthquake.

The February 2011 earthquake caused widespread damage across Christchurch, especially in the central city and eastern suburbs, with damage exacerbated by buildings and infrastructure already being weakened by the 4 September 2010 earthquake and its aftershocks. The earthquake, which struck at lunchtime on a weekday, caused devastation in the central city, with two large office buildings having collapsed (the CTV Building and the PGC House), many historic building façades had collapsed into the streets, two buses were crushed by falling façades in Colombo Street, and many people in City Mall were trapped by fallen masonry. A total of 185 people died in the February earthquake, 169 died in the central zone alone: 115 in the CTV building, 18 at PGC House, 8 on buses in Colombo Street and 28 others in various CBD locations.

Authorities cleared the central city of people, established a cordon on the day of the earthquake and denied access. The day after the earthquake, the government declared a state of national emergency, which stayed in force until 30 April 2011.

Post-Christchurch had a confusing colour-coding applied, with the same colour meaning different things in different areas. The Central City Red Zone is not to be confused with the Residential Red Zone. In the central city, it described the area that was cordoned off after the earthquake. In the eastern suburbs, the colour red refers to land that is subject to liquefaction or the related effect of lateral spreading and that is deemed uneconomic to repair; with over 7,000 properties being purchased by The Crown under a voluntary yet coercive scheme. In the Port Hills, red zoning refers to land where it is not economic to protect buildings that are at risk from rockfall, or land that is unstable due to its proximity to cliffs, with The Crown offering to buy the land. 510 properties are zoned red in the Port Hills.

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