New Zealand's second largest city, Christchurch, lay in ruins Tuesday, devastated by a massive earthquake that toppled tall buildings and churches during a busy workday. The quake killed at least 65 people and many more were missing.
More than 100 people, including as many as 12 visiting Japanese students, were thought to be trapped underneath rubble as drizzling rain fell on the city at nightfall. A visibly shaken Prime Minister John Key said the world may well be witnessing “New Zealand's darkest day.”
Rescue crews with sniffer dogs fanned out across the city in search of survivors, some of whom sent desperate text messages and made cell phone calls from under the wreckage of the 6.3 magnitude quake.
Television footage showed several multi-story buildings that fell in on themselves or into the streets, as well as the collapse of the Christchurch Cathedral, whose stone spire crumbled into a city square. Rescue workers say they believe people were in the tower at the time. Helicopters were seen fighting fires and plucking stranded workers from the roofs of high-rise office towers.
The earthquake, which struck at lunchtime Tuesday, was the second to hit Christchurch in the past five months. The city came through a 7.1-magnitude quake in September without loss of life. But seismologists said Tuesday's quake struck closer to the city and much closer to the surface, making it far more intense.
The September quake came at 5 a.m., while most residents were safe in their beds. Tuesday's temblor struck just before 1 p.m., when workers were in their offices or in the streets for lunch and children were making their way home from school.
Across the city, dazed and bloodied residents wandered along broken sidewalks and buckled roadways as ambulances raced through passable streets with sirens blaring. The city's airport was shut down.
Prime Minister Key, in a television interview, said 350 military troops joined rescue efforts immediately after the quake struck, and hundreds of others would be pressed into action. He described seeing residents sitting by the side of the road with their heads in their hands and said the city of 360,000 residents is “in absolute agony.” He said offers of help have been received from the United States and Australia. In a statement, Britain's Queen Elizabeth, who is also New Zealand's head of state, offered condolences, saying she was “utterly shocked” by the disaster.
Radio New Zealand reporter Laura Davis told VOA from Auckland that 70 army medical staff have been deployed to help the city's overtaxed emergency crews and that search-and-rescue teams were being flown in from around the country. Davis said schools had let out shortly before the quake and that many children were walking home when it struck. She said it was not clear what had happened to them.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was centered five kilometers from Christchurch and at a depth of just four kilometers. Government seismologist Bill Fry told VOA the quake's relatively shallow depth made it much more intense than the stronger quake that hit the city in September.