NZ quake rescue work comes to end
Source: Agencies |
March 4, 2011, Friday
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Print Edition
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RESCUERS officially gave up hope of finding more survivors of New Zealand's devastating earthquake, saying yesterday that no one trapped in rubble when the disaster struck nine days earlier could still be alive.
The news was a blow to the families of around 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 Defense Emergency Management national controller John Hamilton told a news conference yesterday.
"Sadly, there becomes a point where the response effort shifts in focus from rescue to body recovery," he said. "We have now reached that point."
Rescuers have pulled 161 bodies from the rubble, but the vast majority have not yet been identified, and dozens more dead are thought to still be trapped, leaving hundreds of families in anguish. Officials warn the toll could be as high as 240.
Maurice Gardiner, whose sister was thought to be inside an office block that collapsed in the quake and who has not been heard from since, said he accepted the decision but had not given up all hope. "Obviously I would like my sister back with us - at this stage it's not to be," he said.
"They've said that miracles can happen, so I'm going along with what they say."
More than 900 workers trained in disaster rescue and recovery rushed to Christchurch from several countries after the February 22 quake, and have been gingerly picking through the wreckage.
Jim Stuart-Black, the fire service chief who heads the work force, said his teams would start using more heavy machinery to clear the debris, though they would work carefully "to allow for that miracle."
Among the missing and presumed dead are dozens of foreigners, most of them students and staff of an English language school that was in the Canterbury Television building, which collapsed completely in the disaster.
Ethel Uy, whose niece Rhea Mae Sumalpong is among 11 Filipinos missing in the quake, said if she had been killed then the family wants her body returned so they can hold a funeral. "We've prayed for a miracle from God, it's all up to God," said Uy by phone. "If that's Rhea's fate... We want to give her a proper burial."
The news was a blow to the families of around 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 Defense Emergency Management national controller John Hamilton told a news conference yesterday.
"Sadly, there becomes a point where the response effort shifts in focus from rescue to body recovery," he said. "We have now reached that point."
Rescuers have pulled 161 bodies from the rubble, but the vast majority have not yet been identified, and dozens more dead are thought to still be trapped, leaving hundreds of families in anguish. Officials warn the toll could be as high as 240.
Maurice Gardiner, whose sister was thought to be inside an office block that collapsed in the quake and who has not been heard from since, said he accepted the decision but had not given up all hope. "Obviously I would like my sister back with us - at this stage it's not to be," he said.
"They've said that miracles can happen, so I'm going along with what they say."
More than 900 workers trained in disaster rescue and recovery rushed to Christchurch from several countries after the February 22 quake, and have been gingerly picking through the wreckage.
Jim Stuart-Black, the fire service chief who heads the work force, said his teams would start using more heavy machinery to clear the debris, though they would work carefully "to allow for that miracle."
Among the missing and presumed dead are dozens of foreigners, most of them students and staff of an English language school that was in the Canterbury Television building, which collapsed completely in the disaster.
Ethel Uy, whose niece Rhea Mae Sumalpong is among 11 Filipinos missing in the quake, said if she had been killed then the family wants her body returned so they can hold a funeral. "We've prayed for a miracle from God, it's all up to God," said Uy by phone. "If that's Rhea's fate... We want to give her a proper burial."
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