A young Filipino nurse trapped inside a collapsed building in Christchurch's killer quake had 35 precious seconds talking to her parents in Australia shortly before she died, an inquest has been told.
Rhea Mae Sumalpong, 25, was studying English in the city's doomed six-storey Canterbury Television (CTV) building when the 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck on February 22.
The natural disaster, New Zealand's worst in 80 years, claimed the lives of 181 people, including 115 who died in the flattened CTV building.
A three-day inquest opened on Monday to investigate the deaths of Sumalpong and eight others whose remains have not been recovered from the charred rubble.
The inquiry trawls through painstaking details of each victims' last moments, their final sightings, goodbyes, and desperate texts sent and received in the aftermath.
The formality will allow death certificates to be printed, giving "much-needed closure" to their families, the country's chief coroner, Judge Neil MacLean, told the packed gallery.
In detailing the life and death of Rhea Mae, Christchurch Police investigator Paul Kench told of how the young English student had remained in New Zealand when her parents and younger sister relocated to Australia years earlier.
A nurse by profession, she had been studying English at King's College and was eating her lunch in the school's level-three cafeteria when the quake struck at 12.51pm.
She was trapped inside the wreckage with another pupil, who used his mobile phone to send a text to her parents Mario and Marlene Sumalpong to Australia.
Rhea Mae's hands were trapped, Det Insp Kench said, "but they said all was fine, however, their limbs were getting numb".
The phone received 47 calls in the following five hours, the longest being a 35-second call from the Sumalpongs across the Tasman.
"It was shortly after this that the phone disconnected from the network," the officer said in his painful blow-by-blow description.
Both Rhea Mae and her companion died.
Judge MacLean said the death was "particularly tragic" as the nurse "was not killed instantly but lingered on alive in the rubble for some time".
"Fire swept through the building. There's no basis (under) which I could reach any... conclusion other than that she died of multiple traumatic injuries," the coroner said.
The inquest has heard a string of other harrowing tales of desperate text messages sent. One message, "Did you get out??", was sent multiple times to a CTV employee, while a bereft wife sent another plea: "Please tell me you're okay. So worried."
The inquest catalogued a raft of stark facts surrounding the deaths, including proof they had not used their bank accounts, travelled on their passports or been seen since.
A car key and a wedding ring found among the wreckage were used as proof they had died.
In confirming the deaths, Judge MacLean said the inquiry will give families closure to a disaster of "terrifying" proportions.
"To say that this is an extraordinary type of inquiry obviously is an understatement," he told a gallery packed with grieving relatives, some wiping away tears.
"The emotions, of course, are still raw. It's less than three months since these people were living among us."
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