Christchurch ends quake survivor search

New Zealand ruled out any chance of finding more earthquake survivors today, saying the operation was now in the recovery stage.

Families of more than 200 people listed missing after the February 22 quake that devastated Christchurch had been holding out hope someone else may be pulled alive from the rubble.

Officials say many of the missing are among 161 bodies recovered but have not yet been identified.

The Civil Defence Department’s national controller John Hamilton said: “We now face the reality that there is no chance that anyone could have survived for this long.”

He said the response effort had reached the point of shifting from rescue to the recovery of bodies.

Two Israeli backpackers were the first foreigners named among the dead as the painstaking work of confirming the identities of scores of others gained pace.

Officials expect the number of foreigners killed to rise into the dozens, many of them Asian students and staff at an English language school that was in an office building that collapsed.

The process of identifying the victims has been slowed by the extensive injuries to people who were crushed and by the task of picking through the vast amount of rubble left behind by the magnitude-6.3 temblor.

Police superintendent Sam Hoyle said one more body had been found overnight, taking the overall count to 161, though just 13 have been publicly identified. Many others remain missing and officials have said the final death toll could be as high as 240.

Supt Hoyle said 90 of the bodies found so far were pulled from the Canterbury Television building, which housed a regional broadcaster and other offices including the language school, which taught students from Japan, China, the Philippines and other nations.

He said police and those responsible for identifying bodies had met victims’ families to explain why the process of identifying and releasing bodies for burial was proceeding so slowly.

“We fully understand the necessity of providing families with information and explaining why we have to be sure we have the correct identities of those who have died,” he said.

The bodies of seven of the 13 identified were released yesterday, he said.

Meanwhile high winds that hampered rescue operations yesterday abated today. The winds, gusting to 55mph, had blown clouds of dust through the city, forcing residents and rescuers to don face masks.

The gusts hurled debris around the central city area and forced rescuers to briefly abandon the use of cranes.

Superintendent Russell Gibson, another police commander involved in the recovery operation, said work had finally started at the collapsed bell tower of the Christchurch cathedral, which had to be braced before crews could enter. Police say up to 22 bodies may be buried in the rubble.

Other parts of the city were slowly returning to normal, though many of the 350,000 residents are still without, or have limited, water and power supplies and are using thousands of portable toilets deployed on street corners because of damage to the sewage system.