The February 2011 Christchurch earthquake killed over 180 people and caused pretty much of damage: physical, economic, social and so on. It is considered the second baddest natural disaster in the whole history of New Zealand. Along with this, health care specialists started noticing that more and more people (mainly females) show up with obvious signs of severe hair loss, including the girls as young as eight. That is why it was supposed that quake stress can be one of the sheer reasons for people to suffer from hair loss.

Janine Antram, a representative of a governmental company producing wigs, reports that for the period of 6 months about a hundred of women and young ladies aged between 10 and 30 showed up to buy a wig to hide their receding hair. “I have an inquiry from a Christchurch resident experiencing hair loss almost every day,” Antram says. She underlines that the business is now blossoming and bringing pretty good incomes as never before. She is ordering some high quality wigs from the US as there are clients who are ready to pay good money to cover up their hair loss problem.

“There is huge hair loss going on in Christchurch,” says Antram. “I don’t know if it is related to the earthquake, but I do know alopecia is related to stress, and clients have said [alopecia] has come on since the earthquakes.” Quake stress caused baldness of Gendi Roberts, a 14-year-old from Christchurch. He life has changed and so does the attitude of other people. “People have called me an attention-seeker because they think I cut it this way. I go to swimming and some adults there were calling me an attention-seeking little brat and people ask me why I shave my eyebrows off,” Gendi says.

At the same time, Ministry of Health figures reports that in total 218 people in Canterbury claimed grants for wigs to  cover up their hair loss. For the period of time as long as 1 year (from September 2009 to September 2010) it was only 83 people who also had applied for receiving this grant. In addition, it was noticed that young girls and women are among the most common victims os hair loss most probably triggered by quake stress.