'Miracle' needed to find quake survivors

24 Feb 2011, 9:19 am   -   Source: AAP
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A "miracle" is required to find more survivors amid the wreckage of earthquake-hit Christchurch, NZ PM John Key says, as the focus turns to recovering bodies.

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A "miracle" is required to find more survivors amid the wreckage of earthquake-hit Christchurch, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said on Thursday, as the focus turned to recovering bodies.

Two days after the 6.3-magnitude quake flattened buildings in New Zealand's second largest city, there were reports a voice had been heard inside the devastated Canterbury Television building early on Thursday.

Rescuers had resumed work at that site overnight.

"We are hopeful that we might find survivors but as time passes hopes fade," police superintendent Russell Gibson told TV3.

Gibson said 50 to 100 people were believed to be missing in the CTV site, but stressed the numbers were speculative.

Another 20 were feared missing at another site, the Pyne Gould building, he said.

With 71 confirmed dead and the toll expected to rise, Key urged people to be realistic about the prospect of finding survivors after the country's deadliest natural disaster in 80 years.

"That does not mean that there can't and won't be people trapped in buildings," said Key, who has declared a national state of emergency and described the disaster as possibly New Zealand's darkest day.

"All over the world when we see disasters like this, we see miracle stories of people being pulled out, days and in some cases weeks after the event," he told TV3.

"We can't give up hope, but we also need to be realistic."

Central Christchurch remained cordoned off after Tuesday's shallow earthquake as emergency crews carefully picked through the rubble of toppled buildings for indications of survivors.

But as the text messages and tapping noises of the hours after the quake diminished, rescuers began to fear the worst and efforts turned to salvaging bodies.

Rescuers had to amputate limbs to free some survivors, but later abandoned hope for any victims in the flattened CTV building, which housed a school for foreign English-language students.

At least 24 Japanese citizens were among the missing there, including 11 students at the college along with a South Korean brother and sister in their early 20s.

Christchurch's landmark cathedral lost its spire, and dozens of aftershocks rocked the city, much of which was still without power or water.

Elsewhere rescue efforts were hampered by a two-block exclusion zone around the city's tallest hotel, the Grand Chancellor, as the 26-storey building teetered precariously, appearing close to collapse.

Specialist teams from Australia, Britain, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States were due to join the rescue operation.

Condolence messages came from the Vatican and from exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

The Pope called on the faithful to "pray for all those who lost their lives" and asked God to help rescuers.

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