A senior New Zealand official has said there is no chance of finding more survivors from last week’s earthquake and the operation is now in the recovery stage.
Families of more than 200 people listed as missing after the February 22 quake devastated Christchurch have been holding out hope someone else may be pulled alive from the rubble.
Officials said many of those listed as missing are among 161 bodies recovered but that have not yet been identified.
The Civil Defence Department’s national controller John Hamilton told a news conference that “we now face the reality that there is no chance that anyone could have survived for this long”.
He said the response effort had reached the point of shifting from rescue to the recovery of bodies.
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