page_title: Central City Red Zone
section_title: Cordon
hierarchical_section_title: Central City Red Zone / Cordon
caption_attribution_description: English: Manchester Street in the evening of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake.
context_page_description: 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.
context_section_description: An initial cordon was established by Police and the New Zealand Army around the perimeter along the central city along Bealey Avenue, Fitzgerald Avenue, Moorhouse Avenue, Antigua Street, Rolleston Avenue, and Park Terrace. Within days, cordon checkpoints were also manned by Australian Police (mostly New South Wales Police Force and Australian Federal Police) and Singapore Armed Forces.
  The CBD fringe is in large areas of residential nature, so the initial cordon saw many residents within the restricted area. At the last census in 2006, some 7,600 people lived within the three census zones (Avon Loop, Cathedral Square, and Hagley Park) that make up the central city. A triangular area defined by Antigua Street, Hagley Avenue, and Moorhouse Avenue in the south-west of the central city was outside of the cordon. Not much of that area is residential, though, as large areas are occupied by Christchurch Hospital, Hagley Community College, and many industrial uses. Hence, some 7,000 residents were initially affected by the red zone. The cordoned area was thus further subdivided, with an outer orange zone accessible to residents, but no access to the inner red zone other than people authorised first by Civil Defence and later by the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA). Residents living in the inner red zone did not have access to their buildings and had to find accommodation elsewhere.
  A vehicle recovery programme was initiated by Police around 10 March 2011. Cars and bicycles were transferred to a secured compound within Hagley Park, from where vehicle owners could retrieve their vehicles.
  On 21 March 2011, about 100 business owners protested at the Art Gallery, the temporary headquarters of Civil Defence, about lack of access to critical business property (e.g. computer servers, merchandise, cash) as well as a lack of communication, with some buildings having been demolished without any prior communication. They demanded to speak to the National Controller of Civil Defence, John Hamilton. When Hamilton would not see them, some of the business owners breached the inner cordon in protest by simply walking past soldiers manning the entrances, but within minutes, Police started arresting the protesters and pushed protesters back outside the inner cordon. The next day, the Government issued a press release, with Civil Defence Minister John Carter stating that it was "foolish to breach the cordon around the red zone. People died behind that cordon."
  The employment of the New Zealand Army finished on 28 June 2013, after the army having served for 858 days. The cordon was removed two days later on 30 June 2013. Many individual buildings are still fenced off, as they are deemed unstable by the authorities; this includes the Anglican Cathedral in Cathedral Square.
  Over time, the role of the army personnel at the cordon entry points changed from simply restricting access to become guides to tourists and locals alike, with even locals not knowing their way around any longer as so many landmarks have been demolished.
caption: Manchester Street on the day of the earthquake
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