65 Dead In Devastating Christchurch Quake

A major search and rescue operation is underway in Christchurch this morning where at least 100 people remain trapped under rubble.

Construction workers and search and rescue specialists toiled under floodlights to dig out survivors and the dead from buildings flattened by the earthquake that ripped the city apart.

Dozens of search and rescue and medical staff have arrived to continue with the frantic recovery effort.

Yesterday's earthquake has claimed at least 65 lives and scores more are injured in what Prime Minister John Key says "may well be New Zealand's darkest day".

At least 65 people are dead after the shallow 6.3 earthquake hit 10km southeast of the city, just before 1pm. There have been constant aftershocks, as powerful as magnitude 5.7. The latest significant aftershock measured magnitude 5.0 and hit at 7.43pm.

The death toll is already the second highest from a New Zealand earthquake - outranked only by the 256 people killed in the violent 7.9 1931 Hawke's Bay quake, whose 70th anniversary was marked earlier this month.

Police have reported "multiple fatalities" at several locations in the downtown area, including in buses crushed by falling buildings.

Buildings have been destroyed with at least 100 people believed to be trapped inside. Rescuers warned some people remained trapped overnight.

More bodies were likely to be pulled from the rubble of the Canterbury Television building which collapsed in the earthquake, a man involved in assisting rescue teams in their hunt for survivors said tonight.

The Southern Demolition employee, who did not want to be named, told NZPA rescue personnel pulled bodies from the rubble while he was assisting in the recovery effort.

"We were working on one side of the building and on that side we managed to pull one person alive but we also pulled out a body. On the other side they pulled out four or five - I don't know if they were dead or alive.

"It was awful," he said.

He said rescue personnel were risking their lives to jack up parts of the building allow members of urban search and rescue to look for survivors.

"Those guys are brilliant. They get in there where they shouldn't be and if they hear anything everything is turned off while they locate where the sound is coming from," he said.

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