Trapped couple receives bill for stay in New Zealand hotel during quake

Published 8 July 2011

A couple stuck in a Christchurch, New Zealand hotel after the 22 February 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck the city, was shocked to discover they had been charged for their stay; a New Zealand man and his wife were trapped on the hotel’s twenty-second floor for hours and eventually were forced to escape after daringly crossing collapsed stair cases, smashing down doors, and crawling to the roof of a parking lot nearby

A couple stuck in a Christchurch, New Zealand hotel after the 22 February 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck the city, was shocked to discover they had been charged for their stay.

A New Zealand man and his wife were trapped on the hotel’s twenty-second floor for hours and eventually were forced to escape after bravely crossing collapsed staircases, smashing down doors, and jumping on to the roof of a parking lot nearby.

After his ordeal he said he felt “kicked in the guts” to learn that he had been charged nearly $250 for his stay.

It was a pretty traumatic experience for us,” he said, speaking anonymously.

When the quake hit, the couple was in their room watching a movie on the twenty-fifth floor. They fled to the twenty-second floor, but were unable to go any further as the staircase had collapsed. There they remained trapped for about three hours with about a dozen other guests and staff as multiple aftershocks hit the collapsing building.

We were pretty sure the building was going to come down,” the man said.”It was the most nerve-racking time you can imagine.”

After a particularly violent aftershock, one member of the group braved the collapsed stairs, pried open the doors on the floor below, and one by one the remaining survivors followed down the stairs.

Forty-five minutes later, the group managed to descend to the fourteenth floor where they smashed a window and jumped to a nearby roof where they were eventually rescued by a crane.

The hotel charged the couple for their two night stay including the $13 for the movie they were watching when the quake hit and the $15 parking fee for their car, which took two months to recover.

 

Adding insult to injury, the couple has been unable to get insurance coverage for the nearly $12,500 worth of baggage they lost in the hotel because the insurance company says the belongings can still be recovered.

The couple said they were carrying so much because they were about to move to Australia.

The hotel eventually agreed to waive the charges after the story was published inNew Zealand’s The Press, but the man is still upset.

“I would never send something like that,” he said.

 

Frank Delli Cicchi, the New Zealand group manager, explained that the bill was mistakenly sent and that guests trapped in the hotel would not be expected to pay for their stay.

The accountant wouldn’t have realized that these people were stuck in the building,” Cicchi said.

Meanwhile guests who were not in the building when the earthquake hit are still expected to pay their bills.

They legitimately incurred costs,” he said.