CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand (Kyodo) -- The New Zealand city of Christchurch on Saturday marked the 14th anniversary of the devastating 2011 earthquake that claimed 185 lives and injured thousands.

Of the victims, 115 died when the six-story Canterbury Television Building collapsed in the magnitude-6.3 temblor, including 28 Japanese studying English at a language school on the building's third floor.

A memorial service for bereaved families was held at Avonhead Memorial Cemetery on Saturday morning, followed by a public service at the Canterbury Earthquake National Memorial where attendees observed a minute's silence at 12:51 p.m. to mark the time the quake struck on Feb. 22, 2011.

Well more than a decade after the disaster, the process to hold to account those responsible for the structural deficiencies blamed for the CTV building collapse remains ongoing.

In 2017, the police, on the advice of the government's legal advisers, said they would not bring charges against the engineers who designed the building, citing a lack of evidence to secure a conviction in court.

But a disciplinary committee of the country's professional body for engineers in September last year upheld a longstanding complaint against the owner of the engineering firm who designed the building.

The committee of Engineering New Zealand found that the employee who designed the building lacked the necessary experience to do so, and that the owner of the firm, Alan Reay, had failed to provide adequate supervision despite this knowledge.

It ordered Reay be admonished, fined NZ$750 ($429) and pay costs of $1,000 related to resolving the complaint -- the maximum amounts under the body's rules at the time the building was designed in 1986. The committee also believed Reay should issue an apology for his failure.

Reay has requested a judicial review of the committee's decision.