At least 65 dead as 6.3 quake hits NZ's Christchurch

New Zealand’s prime minister has said at least 65 people have been killed in the earthquake that hit the city of Christchurch.

Prime minister John Key told reporters in the stricken city that the death toll was expected to rise further.

A 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit Christchurch around lunchtime today, collapsing buildings and sending bricks and other heavy debris toppling into busy city streets.

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.

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

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

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

Troops were deployed to help people get out and to throw up a security cordon around the stricken area, deputy prime minister Bill English said.

"It is a just a scene of utter devastation," Mr Key said after rushing to the city within hours of the quake.

He said the death toll was 65, and may rise. “This may be New Zealand’s darkest day,” he told TV One News.

It was the second time a major quake hit the city of 350,000 in five months.

Today’s 6.3-magnitude quake struck closer to the town centre than a quake that heavily damaged Christchurch last September but caused no deaths when it struck before dawn on a weekend.

The spire of the stone Christchurch Cathedral toppled into a central city square.

The airport was closed, and Christchurch Hospital was briefly evacuated before it was deemed safe and patients were returned.

Power and telephone lines were knocked out, and pipes burst, flooding the streets with water. Some cars parked on the street were buried under rubble.

Some people were stuck in office towers and firefighters climbed extension ladders to pluck people trapped on roofs to safety.

A crane lifted a team of rescuers on a platform to one group of survivors in a high-rise. Plumes of grey smoke drifted into the air at several points around the city from fires burning in the rubble.

Mr Key held an emergency Cabinet meeting then rushed to the stricken city to observe the scene.

He said eight or nine buildings had collapsed, and that officials were working as fast as they can to free an unknown number of people who were trapped.

New Zealand police said in a statement that reports of fatalities included that two buses had been crushed by falling buildings.

Gary Moore said he and 19 other colleagues were trapped in their twelfth floor office after the stairwell collapsed in the quake. He did not know if people on other floors were trapped.

“We watched the cathedral collapse out our window while we were holding onto the walls,” Mr Moore said.

“Every aftershock sends us rushing under the desks. It’s very unnerving but we can clearly see there are other priorities out the window. There has been a lot of damage and I guess people are attending to that before they come and get us.”

The multi-story Pyne Gould Guinness Building, housing more than 200 workers, collapsed and an unknown number of people are trapped inside. Television pictures showed rescuers, many of them office workers, dragging severely injured people from the rubble.

Mr Parker, the mayor, said he was on the top floor of the city council building when the quake hit just before 1pm local time, throwing him across the room.

“I got down onto the street and there were scenes of great confusion, a lot of very upset people,” he said.

“I know of people in our building who are injured and I’ve had some reports of serious injuries throughout the city.”

The US Geological Survey said the quake was centred three miles from the city at a depth of 2.5 miles.

Two large aftershocks – one magnitude 5.6 and another 5.5 – hit the city within two hours, and officials warned people to stay away from damaged buildings because of the danger of further collapses.

“When the shaking had stopped I looked out of the window, which gives a great view onto Christchurch, and there was just dust,” said city councillor Barry Corbett, who was on one of the top floors of the city council building when the quake struck.

“It was evident straight away that a lot of buildings had gone.”

A search and rescue team was being flown in from Australia to help in the recovery, and Australian prime minister Julia Gillard said she had offered Mr Key any other support he requested.

The USGS said the latest quake was part of the “aftershock sequence” following the 7.1 magnitude earthquake on September 4 last year.

That quake wrecked hundreds of buildings, inflicted an estimated four billion New Zealand dollars in damage, but caused no deaths.

A strong aftershock in December caused further damage to buildings. The city, considered a tourist centre, was still rebuilding from those quakes when Tuesday’s hit.

The USGS said the latest quake hit “significantly closer to the main population centre of Christchurch” than the September quake, which was centred 25 miles west of city.

“The critical issue with this earthquake was that the epicentre was at shallow depth under Christchurch, so many people were within 10 to 20 kilometres of the fault rupture,” said Gary Gibson, a seismologist at Australia’s Melbourne University.

“Its effect depends on how close it is, and ground shaking will be severe within 10 to 20 kilometres of the rupture,” he said.