Royal Commission Report

Yesterday the Royal Commission, which investigated the collapse of the CTV building after the February 2011 earthquake, made their final report public.

First the report was given to the government at the end of November. Last weekend it was given to the families of the victims. It was translated into Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Korean for the families of many of the victims. Families had the weekend to read the report before it was made public yesterday. We already knew that many mistakes were made. Listen to September 8th 2011 to hear more about this.

The Inquiry began in April 2011 and finished in November 2012. The report consists of 7 volumes. Volumes 1 to 4 were made public earlier.

You can read the reports in English, Chinese, Thai or Korean at the Royal Commission website.

The final report made 83 recommendations. Now it is the job of the Building and Construction Minister, Maurice Williamson, to recommend law changes so that mistakes like this will never happen again. Mr Williamson said that we can expect these recommendations by the middle of next year.

Vocabulary

• made public – copies of the report were given to the media and are on the website
• victims – people who died or were injured in the collapse of the building
• volumes – separate parts, separate books
• recommendations – strong suggestions; things that the government should do