New Zealand earthquake death toll goes up to 400. Over 300 missing

Mtoday news / Mail

New Zealand, Feb 24: Hope is fading fast for hundreds of people who are still missing, feared dead in Christchurch as searches in the city are called off.

Families, friends and colleagues are being told to prepare for the worst as they are told the chances of finding their loved ones alive are extremely low.

 

 

A few experienced joy and relief as people were pulled from the wreckage with bleary eyes but barely a scratch on them, but those scenes are not expected to be repeated as time goes by.

At least 75 people have now known to have died but there are still around 300 people missing under deep piles of rubble and huge chunks of concrete.

 

Moment the earthquake hit: Extraordinary image of dust rising from Christchurch taken seconds after the 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck three miles below the city

Rescuers called off a search at Canterbury TV station and a language school where about 25 people are missing, feared dead.

Elsewhere, rescue workers were inching their way through the ruins of a chapel in central Christchurch early today after ’signs of human life’ were located.

The identity of the person believed trapped in the rubble was not immediately revealed but officials said they were hoping they would have a successful rescue as the day proceeded.

The signs that someone was alive came from the wreckage of the Holy Cross Chapel, close to the ruined city cathedral.

Even as rescue crews began working on the chapel’s wreckage another aftershock - the 19th in 12 hours - occurred, causing work to stop temporarily.

Work at several sites during the night failed to find any survivors.

The city’s tallest hotel suffered severe structural damage in the quake and a surrounding area has been cleared over fears that it could topple at any moment.

Marking the desperation now felt in New Zealand, John Hamilton, the director of the country’s Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management, said people only had a window of a couple of days to be given a reasonable prospect of survival.

Some seriously injured victims trapped deep in rubble of some of the city’s most iconic buildings had to have limbs amputated before they could be freed.

 

Razed to the ground: The Canterbury TV building today, where police now say there is no hope

 

Kent Manning and sister Lizzy, with their father, after being told there is no hope for their mother


The Canterbury television building, reduced to a pile of debris and twisted metal, was initially the focus for relief efforts amid estimates 100 people were trapped inside.

Teenagers Lizzy and Kent Manning were among those waiting on the sodden grass outside, desperate for news of their mother.

Despite the utter devastation before them and warnings that chances of survival of those trapped were slim, the pair were determined to stay hopeful.

With tears pouring down her face, Lizzy, 18, insisted: ’My mum is superwoman, she’d do anything’ but at that very moment, a police official came over and started: ’I have some horrible news...’

The pair were told their mother Donna, a TV presenter, could not have survived and that everyone trapped was now believed to be dead.

The Manning siblings, their heartbreak etched on their faces, bowed their heads and wept as their father Jonathan rushed over to wrap them in his arms.

The family became the face of the tragedy in New Zealand today as, across the country, relatives were struggling to absorb the same, devastating news.

Between 80 and more than 100 are believed to be stuck in the single building after the catastrophic earthquake ripped through the picture postcard city on Monday.

Rescuers were forced to call off attempts to save them because the structure was so badly damaged. Police say they are ’100 per cent certain’ no one left inside could have survived.

Police operations commander, Inspector Dave Lawry, said: ’We don’t believe this site is now survivable’ and warned the building’s tower is now also in danger of collapse.

’At a certain point, I’m not going to risk my staff [searching] for people who I believe have no chance of survivability. That’s the end of it.’

He added: ’My heart goes out to those families... knowing that some of their children have probably been killed in this incident. We will do the very best for your people that we can.’

 

In ruins: Rescue workers search rubble near the Canterbury TV building

 

Pulled from the rubble: Rescue workers help a woman from a ruined building today

 

Sobering: As night fell on Wednesday, the TV building was little more than a mound of rubble

 

Office blocks collapsed, roads buckled and cars were crushed. It also caused 30million tons of ice to break from New Zealand’s biggest glacier, the Tasman, causing a tsunami with waves of up to 12ft.

The tremor - an aftershock from a quake last year - struck at 12.51pm, right in the middle of a busy lunchtime, at a depth of only three miles - its shallow nature provoking greater devastation.

The epicentre was under the harbour at Lyttelton, seven miles from Christchurch, as office workers were enjoying their lunch break in the city square which is dominated by the cathedral.

Briton Barnaby Luck said: ’Everything started shaking and it became more and more violent - it was like someone had got hold of the building and was shaking it and swinging it back and forwards.

Another UK citizen, Alec Allen, was playing tennis when the quake struck. ’There was a deep rumble like thunder then everything was shaking and people were screaming,’ he said.

’I looked at the court and all of this mud just seeped up through the ground. The court started breaking up and flooding with water and mud coming through the earth.’

 

Cramped: Survivors and people left homeless in a disaster shelter


Many buildings collapsed because they had been weakened by a massive 7.1 scale tremor last September, which caused less devastation because it was at a much greater depth.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key said: ’We may be witnessing New Zealand’s darkest day. People are just sitting on the side of the road, their heads in their hands.

’This is a community that is absolutely in agony. There are no words that can spare our pain. We are witnessing a violent and ruthless act of nature.’

Police have warned that anyone entering a cordon they have set up around the city centre without authority will be arrested after several arrests overnight for looting.

Hundreds spent last night huddled in emergency centres amid warnings of more aftershocks which could bring down more buildings. Power lines were down, leaving homes in darkness.

Householders were told not to take showers or flush lavatories because the city’s water supply, sewage works and gas lines had been destroyed.

Experts predict insurance losses could reach $12billion, making the earthquake costliest natural disaster since Hurricane Ike in 2008.