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New Zealand quake kills 65 as dozens trapped
Topic Started: Feb 22 2011, 01:08 PM (455 Views)
shure
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New Zealand quake kills 65 as dozens trapped
'This may be New Zealand's darkest day': PM
CBC News Posted: Feb 22, 2011 6:41 AM ET Last Updated: Feb 22, 2011 11:58 AM ET
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/02/22/new-zealand-earth-quake.html

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More than 100 people are believed to be trapped in rubble after a deadly 6.3-magnitude earthquake rocked the southern New Zealand city of Christchurch on Tuesday, killing at least 65 people.

It was the second quake to hit New Zealand in five months.

As many as a dozen visiting Japanese students, were among those trapped as darkness and drizzling rain fell Tuesday night.

Thousands of people were spending the night in makeshift shelters, Andrew McKie of the Red Cross told CBC News in an interview, adding his agency is helping to provide drinking water because the water supply is compromised.

Meanwhile, rescue crews with sniffer dogs fanned out across the city in search of survivors, some of whom were able to send text messages or make phone calls from under the wreckage.

There's no electricity in 80 percent of the city, Peter Mitchell of the Christchurch Civil Defence and Emergency Management, told CBC News in an interview.

Crews can't use equipment they would normally use to prop up buildings and secure slabs of concrete and instead are having to do much more by hand.

The quake caused 30 million tonnes of ice to break off the Tasman glacier. It's the biggest glacier in New Zealand, about 200 kilometres from Christchurch.

Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker declared a state of emergency and ordered people to evacuate the city centre following the quake.

"The government is willing to throw everything it can in the rescue effort," Deputy Prime Minister Bill English said. "Time is going to be of essence."

In Canada, the Department of Foreign Affairs said it had no reports of any Canadians affected by the earthquake. Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a statement extending his "deepest sympathies" to those who lost loved ones in the quake.

"The thoughts and prayers of Canadians are with all those affected by the earthquake. Canada is standing by to offer any possible assistance to New Zealand in responding to this natural disaster," the statement said.

Olivia Harris of Vancouver Island, who is studying radiology at a Zealand Hospital in Christchurch, was doing a phone interview with CBC News when a powerful aftershock hit Tuesday.

"Oh my God, there's a huge one again. … I'm right in the middle of the road so nothing can really fall on me," Harris said, adding that at the hospital there was pandemonium.

"The influx of patients just coming in … such a fast rate. There was doctors rushing into the hospital saying, 'I'm a doctor, how can I help? How can I help?'"

Eventually, Harris said, she made her way home but was too frightened to sleep inside, so she spent the night camping on her lawn.

Eleisha McNeil of Toronto, who is also in Christchurch, said that her street was a "sea of mud and water that's bubbled out of the ground" Tuesday and that she felt some aftershocks.

She was home with her husband and baby when the initial quake hit Monday, bouncing her all over the house.

"The noise was astounding. Everything that could fall down, did fall down."

McNeil said that New Zealand Television is reporting the death toll could rise to 400.

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key also said the death toll was expected to rise.

"It is a just a scene of utter devastation," Key told TV One News in Christchurch. "This may be New Zealand's darkest day."

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Earlier, a police statement said "multiple fatalities have been reported at several locations in the central city, including two buses crushed by falling buildings.

"Other reports include multiple building collapses, fires in buildings in the central [city] and persons reported trapped in buildings," the statement said.

Christchurch's daily newspaper, the Press, reported on its website that witnesses said screams could be heard coming from the Pyne Gould Business building, where as many as 30 people were feared trapped.

Top of cathedral collapses

The spire of downtown Christchurch Cathedral collapsed into a central city square.

Video footage showed some multi-storey buildings collapsed in on themselves, and others with walls that had collapsed into the streets, strewn with bricks and shattered concrete.

Sidewalks and roads were cracked and split, and thousands of dazed, screaming and crying residents wandered through the streets as sirens blared.

Groups of people helped victims clutching bleeding wounds, and others were carried to private vehicles in makeshift stretchers fashioned from rugs or bits of debris.

The quake first hit at 12.51 p.m. local time, according to New Zealand's GNS Science. It was centred at Lyttelton, N.Z., southeast of Christchurch, at a depth of five kilometres.

Aftershocks were continuing, the New Zealand Herald reported. They included a 5.7-magnitude aftershock at 1:04 p.m. at a depth of six kilometres, 10 kilometres south of Christchurch.

The city's airport was closed after the flight tower collapsed, and a major tunnel was shut. Christchurch Hospital remained open but was damaged, the Press reported.

People working in the centre of Christchurch interviewed by Sky News New Zealand said the quake was much worse than last year's.

Because the quake occurred at lunchtime on a busy Tuesday, many more people were hurt. The Sept. 4, 2010, earthquake, registering at 7.1 magnitude, occurred on a weekend, and since then, Christchurch has been hit by hundreds of aftershocks, causing extensive damage and a handful of injuries, but no deaths.






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A Storm is Coming

More info on New Zealanders second big quake

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-new-zealand-quake-20110224,0,297881.story?track=rss
Edited by A Storm is Coming, Feb 24 2011, 01:19 AM.
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