Everyone lives with risk every day.
While most take prudent measures to minimise risk, it is never eliminated.
Drive on the road, for example, and a car could come around a blind corner on the wrong side.
But most of us don't stop travelling because of that risk.
Similarly, neither should the risk of "earthquake-prone" buildings be taken out of perspective.
If we look particularly at Dunedin, the city does indeed have scores of unreinforced masonry buildings, the type of structure usually most vulnerable.
Just look at much of commercial George St, or Princes or Crawford Sts.
The city could well be struck by a significant earthquake, and lives could be lost.
For these reasons, the hazards cannot be ignored.
But an overreaction to Christ- church's devastation would be ill-advised, ill-affordable and could decimate Dunedin as a heritage city.
For a start, it should be recognised that earthquakes such as "February 22" are likely to be extraordinarily infrequent, that quake being listed by the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences as a 1:2500-year event.
Despite that, and the phenomenal forces at work, almost all buildings did not collapse completely.
In this tragic event, of the 185 people killed, 133 were in two buildings, the CTV and PGG structures.
Most unreinforced masonry buildings, like those along Colombo St, while devastated, did not fall down.
Tumbling facades and debris killed about 40 people. Five people actually inside such buildings died.
In the unlikely event of a massive quake hitting Dunedin, it would be well-nigh impossible to protect most of our heritage stock, even if tens of millions of dollars were spent.
Christchurch showed no building can be completely protected from damage.
However, susceptible buildings can be protected from total collapse, and facades, decorations and parapet secured for reasonable cost.
The realistic focus should be on what can be done to save lives rather than buildings.
This balanced approach has to date been followed by the Dunedin City Council, which has instigated an owner-paid mass assessment of how Dunedin's pre-1976 buildings, other than most houses, would cope in an earthquake.
If their strength is less than 34% of the new building standard, owners will be given between 15 and 30 years to upgrade to least that level.
While that might sound like a relatively long time, it will come soon enough.
It should be acknowledged the DCC's earthquake policy development preceded the Christchurch disaster.
What the earthquakes have done is banish procrastination and focus the minds of authorities.
Depending on whether the Building Act is amended following the Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission, the requirements could be higher.
In Dunedin's case, it is important a Christchurch backlash does not compel elevated standards.
Some building owners may then use prohibitive costs as a reason to demolish.
Others may let their properties deteriorate beyond feasible repair.
Earthquake risks to the public and tenants could then actually increase - in such circumstances it may not even take a shake for buildings to start coming apart.
The University of Otago and Government, for their part, have been assiduous in proceeding faster and often to more exacting levels.
The costs run into the many millions, and, as public organisations, their increased adversity to risk is understandable.
Among the largest challenges will be those facing voluntary groups, particularly churches.
It must be hoped Dunedin's inspiring churches, including First, Knox, St Paul's and St Joseph's do not require too much work.
It's possible some suburban churches, often with small congregations, could abandon their places of worship.
The sensible idea with the lead-in times is that earthquake work - like fastening floors to walls - can be achieved when the next refit or rewiring takes place, thus minimising costs.
Nevertheless, there will be buildings for which the work cannot be economically justified.
For the sake of Dunedin, it must be hoped there are not too many of these.
Other communities in the South, to varying degrees, are, of course, facing the same issues.
They, too, have to work through them, balancing safety, cost, heritage values and liveable risk.
