New Zealand earthquake kills at least 65 people
New Zealand city of Christchurch hit by 6.3 quake
At least 65 people confirmed to be killed
Hundreds feared still trapped in collapsed buildings
Centre of city evacuated as aftershocks continue
Read the latest summary of events
5.47am / 6.47pm NZ: Australia's Channel 7 is streaming live video from Christchurch from TV3, most of it quite devastating:
"Christchurch tonight is a city destroyed," intones the presenter.
5.43am / 6.43pm NZ: Christchurch Bob Parker is now estimating that there are between 100 to 200 people alive and trapped in buildings in the central business district.
Still no news about casualties outside of Christchurch it may be that the low-rise buildings and low density means that far fewer have been affected.
5.40am / 6.40pm NZ: Peter Beck, the dean of Christchurch Cathedral, says he fears there are fatalities inside the cathedral, probably from tourists visiting the city landmark, when the cathedral's tower collapsed.
"We ask you to pray for the people of Christchurch as we try to deal with this," says the dean.
5.35am / 6.35pm NZ: Toby Manhire, former Guardian journalist now back in his native New Zealand, reports:
New Zealand's civil defence minister John Carter on Radio New Zealand National, asked by [presenter] Mary Wilson whether fatalities could go into the hundreds, answered "Yes" before correcting himself and saying it was too early to estimate. He went on to say, "New Zealand needs to get prepared for being a pretty sad nation for a while."
5.31am / 6.31pm NZ: Here is dramatic footage from the air, taken by helicopter, showing the full extent of the devastation in! Christc hurch.
5.29am / 6.29pm NZ: Prime minister John Key is now on Radio New Zealand talking about "one of the blackest days" in New Zealand history.
Key says that it's hard to know how many people are still trapped and casually mentions that the building behind him in Latimer Square is on fire.
He confirms that the figure of 65 dead is based on bodies that have been removed from buildings and implies that there could be more to come.
5.24am / 6.24pm NZ: The New Zealand prime minister John Key has now confirmed that 65 people are dead. This is surely the worst tragedy in New Zealand since the 1977 Erebus air disaster.
5.16am / 6.16pm: It now seems the death toll will be far higher than feared, based on this news from John Bergin, director of digital news for Sky News Australia.
5.12am / 6.12pm NZ: The mayor of Christchurch, Bob Parker, has just given a press conference in which he has tried to prepare the city for a "major tragedy".
5.10am / 6.10pm: The New Zealand Herald has the most grim news so far, of "bodies lying in the streets" of Christchurch:
Residents are reporting bodies lying in the streets of Christchurch following this afternoon's magnitude 6.3 earthquake.
Police said fatalities had been reported at several locations and that two buses had been crushed by falling buildings. Christchurch mayor Bob Parker has declared a state of emergency.
Christchurch resident Jaydn Katene told the Herald: "We've had friends in town call us and say there are just bodies lying around; lots of dead bodies outside shops just lying there just covered in bricks."
5.03am / 6.03pm NZ: The Canterbury Television building has been one of the hardest hit in the centre of the city, with several bodies being taken out on stretchers and parts of the building on fire. Burst water mains in the area means that fire fighters are having to use monsoon bu! ckets to put it out.
4.55am / 5.55pm NZ: Google has launched an online people finder service for victims of the Christchurch earthquake.
4.48am / 5.48pm NZ: Most of the attention has focussed on the city centre but news is filtering in from the nearby port of Lyttelton and seaside town of New Brighton, both closer to the centre of the earthquake. Now TV3 channel is reporting that the two towns are "unliveable", which suggests considerable damage.
4.44am / 5.44pm NZ: The local newspaper is the Christchurch Press, and its office is right on Cathedral Square in the city centre and it has posted this chilling video footage of the immediate aftermath. It's like a horror film.
Warning: contains distressing scenes
It's clear that the devastation is far worse than the earthquake in September.
4.30am / 5.30pm NZ: National broadcaster TVNZ has opened a live web feed for international viewers to watch events in Christchurch here.
Radio New Zealand's National programme is running rolling news with a live audio feed here.
4.22am / 5.22pm NZ: Thanks Lee. As a former resident of Canterbury I know the city well and I have many relatives and friends living there, and the live footage being shown on television is devastating.
Here's an summary of how things stand at the moment:
Just before 1pm local time the city of Christchurch was hit by a major earthquake registering 6.3 on the Richter scale, close to the surface, making it more damaging than the 7.1 scale shock that hit the city in September
Police and civil defence authorities have confirmed that there are an unknown number of casualties but warn of "major" tragedy
Two commut! er buses were crushed under falling debris
City authorities have ordered the evacuation of the city centre, as after-shocks threaten weakened buildings, power and water has been cut off and sewerage pipes have ruptured
A major search and rescue operation is under way to find people trapped inside collapsed buildings in the centre of the city, with at least 30 thought to be in one building alone and perhaps several hundred overall
The steeple of Christchurch Cathedral, a city landmark, has partly collapsed with reports of people trapped inside the cathedral
The New Zealand dollar's value has tumbled on foreign exchanges
4.17am/ 5.17pm NZ: I'm going to handover to my colleague - and former resident of New Zealand, Richard Adams to take over for a little while.
3.59am/4:59pm NZ: The New Zealand Herald has spoken to Kevin Fenaughty, the data centre manager at Geonet, who said the epicentre of the quake was located at the "worst possible location" for the city.
It's a nightmare. A lot of people were just getting back on their feet after the original quake.
3.51am/4:51pm NZ: Some of the descriptions coming through from witnesses can give us a little bit more of a picture about what happened when the quake struck. 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. 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.
City councilman Barry Corbett, who was on one of the top floors of the city council building when the qua! ke struc k.
When the shaking had stopped I looked out of the window, which gives a great view onto Christchurch, and there was just dust. It was evident straight away that a lot of buildings had gone.
John Gurr, a camera technician who was in the city centre when the quake hit said:
I was in the square right outside the cathedral - the whole front has fallen down and there were people running from there. There were people inside as well. A lady grabbed hold of me to stop falling over...We just got blown apart. Colombo Street, the main street, is just a mess...There's lots of water everywhere, pouring out of the ground.
3.49am/4:49pm NZ: Here is an image as the earthquake hit where you can see some of the damage done to the Catherdral.
3.46am/ 4:46pm NZ: One of the buildings which appears to have some of the worst damage so far is the Christchurch Cathedral, a site of much affection throughout the city. Here are pictures showing the damage. This is am image of the Cathedral taken at the end of last year.
3.35am/ 4:34pm NZ: The Pyne Gould Guinness Building, a multi-story structure housing more than 200 workers, has collapsed and an unknown number of people are trapped inside.
3.27am/ 4:27pm NZ: Christchurch mayor Bob Parker has declared a level 3 emergency in Christchurch and the city is being evacuated. "Make no mistake this is going to be a very black day for this shaken city," he said when asked about possible deaths.
3.24am/4:24pm NZ: It appears that the timing of the quake - when the city was at its busiest with many people moving around during their lunch hour, has meant that while it was of less magnitude than the earthquake in September last year, the damage has been far more extensive, and injuries worse. Witnesses have said the gravity of the force felt a lot stronger than 6.3. The US Geological Survey said the quake struck near the city with a shallow depth of 4 kilometres, shortly before 12:50pm local time.!
3 .15am/4:15pm NZ: TV3 New Zealand is reporting that the city has run out of ambulances and Christchurch airport is closed to all but emergency flights. Police have said there was a report of two buses crushed under falling buildings. Power and telephone lines were knocked out, and pipes have burst, flooding the streets with water.
3.13am/4:13pm NZ: Christchurch mayor Bob Parker has given an interview to Radio New Zealand:
We now need to think about all the things we learnt at that time (of the September 4 quake).
"Emergency services now have the incredibly difficult task of navigating a city which is evacuating itself.
"We need to start the process of checking hundreds of people.
"I don't have an overview.
"That was as violent as the earthquake we had on the September 4th.
"We had a nasty shock again about 30 to 60 seconds later."
3.08am/4:08pm NZ: You can follow a live-stream of the rescue effort taking place in Christchurch here.
3.01am/ 4:01pm NZ: There are numerous reports of people trapped in buildings throughout the city though details remain unclear as to numbers.
"It is huge. We just don't know if there are people under this rubble," a priest standing outside the rubble of a damaged cathedral told New Zealand television.
2.59am/3:59pm NZ: New Zealand Prime Minister John Key is on his way to Christchurch following an emergency cabinet meeting in Wellington. Earlier he told cabinet:
"This is a very populated time with people at work and children at school. Sadly, I cannot rule out whether there have been fatalities or not. But we are aware of significant damage to buildings that had people in them at the time."
2.55am/3:55pm NZ: Here are some of the latest details coming through from Reuters.
A strong quake hit New Zealand's second-biggest city of Christchurch, toppling buildings, causing "multiple fatalities", trapping people beneath rubble! and spa rking fires.
Local TV showed bodies being pulled out of rubble strewn around the city centre, though it was unclear whether any of them were alive, but police reported multiple fatalities after the 6.3 magnitude quake struck during the busy lunchtime.
"I was in the square right outside the cathedral - the whole front has fallen down and there were people running from there - there were people inside as well," said John Gurr, a camera technician who was in the centre of the city when the quake hit.
"A lady grabbed hold of me to stop falling over ... It's not nice at all. We just got blown apart. Colombo Street, the main street, is just a mess ... There's lots of water everywhere, pouring out of the ground - its liquefaction - its an absolute mess."
2.45am/3:45pm NZ: : New Zealand's second largest city has been hit by a strong earthquake, measuring 6.3 in magnitude, with first reports suggesting there are multiple fatalities and people trapped in buildings. This is the second earthquake in five months to hit the region, with a 7.1 magnitude quake in September last year which caused widespread damage but there were no deaths. You can follow a live-feed of the rescue here and read our latest news story on what happened when the quake hit.
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