NZ Earthquake Damage "Unsurvivable"
The BBC reports:
Hopes are fading of finding survivors beneath collapsed buildings in the aftermath of Tuesday's earthquake in the New Zealand city of Christchurch.
Ninety-eight bodies have now been recovered and taken to a temporary morgue. Prime Minister John Key said that number could rise substantially.
Police have said 226 people are missing - up to 120 of them at one site alone.
But they have also insisted it remains a rescue operation and that specialists are still hunting for signs of life.
The earthquake struck at a shallow depth of 5km (3.1 miles) early in the afternoon on Tuesday, when the South Island city was at its busiest.
It was Christchurch's second major tremor in five months, and New Zealand's deadliest natural disaster for 80 years.
'Unsurvivable'
Hundreds of foreign search and rescue specialists - from the US, UK, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan - arrived in the city on Thursday to help police and soldiers combing through the dangerously unstable ruins.
They used sniffer dogs, sound detectors, thermal imaging equipment and cameras to detect any signs of life, but as the day drew to a close there had been none. The last survivor was found Wednesday afternoon.
Despite the lack of results, many of the rescuers remained hopeful.
"Miracles happen and we're keeping that in the forefront of our minds. That sort of things drives you and pushes you on," Keith Norton told the Reuters news agency.
Superintendent Dave Cliff, the police district commander, said it had not yet turned into a recovery operation.
Click here to read more.
