The organisation leading Canterbury's civil defence efforts in the wake of the 7.1-magnitude earthquake on September 4 and the aftershocks is itself facing millions of dollars of costs.
Environment Canterbury (ECan) estimates the cost of the emergency response and damage to some of its infrastructure, such as river stopbanks, to be between $5 million and $7 million - so far.
Dealing with the emergency will also have an impact on normal work done by the Canterbury Regional Council.
The initial cost estimate is going to a special meeting of its finance and audit committee today.
Corporate programmes manager Neil Pilbrow has reported on the costs faced so far in dealing with the emergency, damage to the council's infrastructure and programmes arising from the earthquake it will be involved in in the future.
"The preliminary cost of ECan's emergency response and repairing damage is estimated at $5 million to $7 million," he said.
However, some of those costs could be reimbursed by Government and insurance companies. For example, the Civil Defence Act made provision for reimbursement of response and recovery costs from central government.
In terms of damage to ECan's own property and infrastructure, most was to stopbanks and one of its buildings in Amberley.
Stopbanks were damaged on both sides of the Waimakariri River downstream of SH1, the north side of the Kaiapoi River downstream of central Kaiapoi and the south side downstream of the rail bridge.
Work has already started on repairs.
The Amberley office, a two-storey double-brick former bank built in 1900, needed chimneys removed and strengthening.
ECan's Christchurch headquarters in Kilmore St and other buildings suffered no or only minor damage.
The flood warning and hydrology network remained operational, but would need to be surveyed and recalibrated once the risk of damage from aftershocks had reduced.
Assessments of underground damage to groundwater monitoring wells will be completed within the next six months.
