Baby Baxtor first quake victim laid to rest

THE baby boy who is the youngest known victim of New Zealand’s earthquake disaster was its first laid to rest, given a farewell by grieving relatives who clutched stuffed toys and draped his tiny coffin in a comforter.

Baxtor Gowland, just five months old, was sleeping in his home in the southern city of Christchurch when he was killed by masonry shaken loose by the quake that hit with sudden and brutal force last Tuesday.

Authorities have named just eight victims of the disaster — Gowland and another infant among them — and say they are struggling to identify many of the 140 other bodies pulled from the rubble because of the extent of their injuries.