Christchurch: the latest tally: 154 dead

As I write this at 4pm Eastern Standard Time on Monday, it is 10am on Tuesday in Christchurch. In almost three hours, at 12:51pm local time, New Zealand is going to observe two minutes of silence to mark one week since the 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck the country’s second largest city and left a devastating mark on its history.

According to ABC News, the official death toll now stands at 154 and the caveat with every report is that the number can only go up. As more bodies are uncovered, it is thought that the final total will exceed 200. There are over 50 people still unaccounted for.

The last survivor found was a woman who was pulled from a collapsed office building last Wednesday afternoon. Authorities are saying that it is highly unlikely they will find anyone else still alive after this length of time.

The first funeral of a quake victim was held yesterday for a five-month-old baby boy who was born just after the 7.0 quake last September.

TVNZ reports that police are still being vigilant in patrolling the city business district. They have apparently been receiving reports of people entering building declared unsafe which bear a red sticker. A spokesperson for the police said the red sticker is there because the building is dangerous and could collapse at any time. They know people may be frustrated by having to wait, those who have cars or businesses in the downtown core. The police went on to explain that the CBD (city business district) is still fraught with danger and access to the area must be controlled. Their focus right now is on rescue.

Another TVNZ report said the CTV building which collapsed with possibly 120 people inside, was declared safe after the massive quake which struck the city last September. The city council is standing by its assessment of the structure saying that no one could have predicted the force of last week’s earthquake. The paper quoted buildings manager Steve McCarthy:

“What Mother Nature did to us last Tuesday was to deliver an earthquake that exceeded design standards, and it exceeded them by 50%. The unique thing about this earthquake is that it lifted the ground and the buildings and then dumped it at two times the force of gravity.”

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