Rescuers searched through the night for survivors after a powerful earthquake killed at least 65 people in New Zealand’s second city Christchurch yesterday, crushing buildings and vehicles.
“We may be witnessing New Zealand’s darkest day,” Prime Minister John Key said after the 6.3-magnitude quake pummelled the city, six months after buildings were weakened by a 7.0 quake that miraculously claimed no victims.
“This is a community that is absolutely in agony,” Mr Key said, warning that the toll was likely to rise.
New Zealand’s deadliest tremor in 80 years struck as streets were packed with lunchtime shoppers, and turned central Christchurch into a rubble-strewn disaster zone littered with dazed and bleeding residents. The city’s cathedral lost its spire while the six-storey Canterbury TV building was reduced to a smoking ruin.
Rescue helicopters plucked survivors to safety from the rooftops of buildings where staircases had collapsed and emergency workers used giant cranes to pull office workers out of ruined buildings.
Media reports quoted Christchurch’s mayor Bob Parker as saying that up to 100 people may still be trapped inside ruined buildings.
Among those unaccounted for were 11 students and teachers from a language school in the Japanese city of Toyama, Japan’s Jiji Press news agency reported.
Police drafted in urban search and rescue teams in an attempt to locate survivors, while Japan, Australia and the United States were among countries sending rescuers to help.
Miranda Newbury was on the third floor of another city building when the quake hit, forcing her to make her way down through a darkened, crumbling staircase.
“I really thought my time was up. When I finally got outside, there was dust everywhere – it looked like a war zone,” she said.
Other churches were partly destroyed in the tremor and the local newspaper’s offices were badly hit. Reports said survivors there were frantically texting relatives as they took shelter under their desks.
“The centre of the city bore the brunt (in September) but nothing like this time, where it’s been absolutely devastated,” Mr Key said, adding that the air force was mobilising Hercules transporter planes for the relief effort.
“What was a vibrant city a few hours ago now has been brought to its knees.”
Local station TV3 said dead bodies had been pulled from a hostel and a bookshop, and that a tourist was crushed to death in a van. All flights in the country were briefly suspended after a Christchurch control tower was damaged.