Rescuers halt search for quake survivors

RESCUERS have officially given up hope of finding more survivors of New Zealand’s earthquake, saying no one trapped in rubble when the disaster struck could still be alive.

The news was a blow to the families of about 200 people listed as missing, many of whom clung to faltering hope for good news despite more than a week of silence from beneath the piles of debris that still litter the city of Christchurch.

“We now face the reality that there is no chance that anyone could have survived this long,” Civil Defence Emergency Management national controller John Hamilton told a conference.