Outlook Is Grim in Hunt for New Zealand Quake Survivors

Hopes of finding more survivors of the devastating earthquake here waned Thursday as the search-and-rescue operation entered its third day, with many foreigners among those missing.
New Zealand police officials said on Thursday the death toll had risen to 98 from the magnitude 6.3 earthquake that struck Christchurch, New Zealand’s second-largest city, on Tuesday. The quake happened during the busy lunch hour, flattening office buildings and raining debris on buses and cars.
The police said there were grave fears for more than 200 people still missing.
The city’s heavily damaged downtown was roped off for safety reasons, and one building, the Hotel Grand Chancellor, was feared likely to collapse.
Some people gathered outside the cordon to await news of missing relatives. One man who spoke to a local television network on Wednesday had brought along his dog, believing it would have the best chance of sniffing out his missing mother. He also brought photographs of her to show rescuers, and fought back tears as he described “the coolest mum ever.”
Superintendent Dave Cliff, the commander of the regional police force, told reporters: “We really appreciate the fact that people are hurting. The agony of not knowing, all of us know that is a dreadful feeling, and that’s what we’re trying to put to an end as soon as we humanly can.”
Some of the missing are citizens of other countries, Prime Minister John Key said Thursday, and New Zealand authorities were working with consular officials from Australia, Britain, France, Japan and South Korea, where families have reported missing relatives.
On Thursday morning, rescue teams pulled bodies from the charred wreckage of the Canterbury Television building, a five-story structure that caught fire after it collapsed Tuesday. The building housed an English-language school, where an unknown number of foreign students are thought to have died.
Superintendent Cliff said there was no chance of finding survivors in the building’s rubble; 60 to 120 people who were thought to be in the building are missing.
In other areas, the police said they were still searching for survivors using dogs, sonar and remote camera equipment to check for signs of life. No survivors have been pulled from the rubble since Wednesday, when a woman was plucked from the upper floor of a damaged building.