Rebuilding Christchurch, One Sandcastle at at Time

When an earthquake occurs where the soil is sandy, the shaking compresses the ground and forces ground water mixed with sand and silt up through the surface layers of soil, this is called liquefaction. It results in vast areas of sand and silt on people's properties, which is being dug out and dumped on roadsides for later collection by council trucks.

Our street is not too bad, this is the next street over from us. My daughter decided that all this sand was just crying out to be made into sandcastles:

They won't last long, even if they have to wait a bit before the trucks get round this way, the aftershocks will take care of them. But for a while, every car that passed held a person with a smile on their face, as they saw what she had been up to.