Chair Cemetery in Christchurch

Today I flew to Christchurch in the South Island of New Zealand to spend a few days with my stepmother Bette. In the afternoon I took a bus tour into the 'Red Zone' - the Central Business District which is still cordoned off to the public after 2 devastating earthquakes in 2010 and 2011. It is a shocking scene of destruction; so many landmarks and historic buildings gone forever and continuous demolition on a gigantic scale.

A poignant stop was this memorial to the 185 people who died in the 2nd earthquake. Local artist Pete Majendie collected 185 chairs, one for each of the dead, painted them white, and put them in rows on the grounds of the Oxford Tce Baptist Church.