Ten years ago today Canterbury was hit by the first of two major earthquakes that caused devastation in the region.
A 7.1 magnitude quake struck the small town of Darfield - 40 kilometres west of Christchurch - at 4.35am on September 4, 2010, claiming no lives but causing widespread damage to buildings.
A second quake on February 22, 2011, killed 185 people. The 6.3 shake hit at 12.51pm.
Former Christchurch City Councillor Ali Jones told TVNZ1's Breakfast this morning some residents were still struggling.
Jones has been an advocate for residents struggling with the Earthquake Commission and private insurers since the quakes.
"There's still thousands of people still dealing with this," she said.
The quake triggered aftershocks which would later cause widespread death and destruction in the region.
"If there's one thing I can get across today to people is it may have happened 10 years ago and yes we have to look at the positives and talk about some of this in the past tense, but there are a large number of people whose lives are still not back, many have died, some are sick, let's remember those people, concentrate on those people and give them their lives back."
In April, a public inquiry into the Earthquake Commission said there had been inadequate quality control, with poor staffing and uncoordinated planning.
It also said shoddy repairs it carried out led to stress and trauma for claimants.
Jones this morning talked about one family with three young children still living in a home with damage from the earthquake. She said they were "shells of the people they were before".
"It's really important that people understand life throws stuff at you, right, you have elderly parents, you have illness, sickness, broken bones, children that are sick, whatever, all those things that life throws at you. You add 5, 6, 8, 10 years of constant stress and pressure at a level that is not really human to deal with and everything just becomes too difficult.
"What concerns me in the claimants reference group is that if we had a similar event tomorrow there are some pretty serious and major issues that we don't think have been addressed and we do worry that the same mistakes will be made."
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