New Zealand police warned yesterday that it could take months to identify all the victims of the devastating Christchurch earthquake as the death toll continued to rise.
There are now 166 confirmed dead and the toll could reach more than 200 police said, as tentative first steps were taken to reopen the severely damaged central business district while strong aftershocks continued to rock the city.
TOLL REVISIONS
The estimated death toll was revised down a day after searchers reported there were no bodies in the city’s centerpiece cathedral where it was believed up to 22 people were crushed in the magnitude 6.3 quake.
Police superintendent Sam Hoyle said a multinational team from Australia, Britain, Japan, China, Singapore, Israel and Thailand was working on the complex victim identification process.
“We are acutely aware that families want their loved ones returned, particularly our guests from -overseas, and our teams are working flat out to achieve this,” he said.
“However international experience from events such as the Boxing Day tsunami and the [Australian] Victoria bush fires has shown it can be months before all identities are confirmed. This is painstaking, exacting work and the reality is very different from how it looks in television program such as CSI.”
AFTERSHOCKS
Eleven days after the horrific quake, Christchurch was shaken by a swarm of aftershocks, including one of magnitude 4.8, but that did not deter a long line of people stretching more than 100m waiting to enter the central city.
The GNS Science monitoring agency says the magnitude 4.8 aftershock struck Saturday night causing minor damage.
The cordon around the inner city was partially lifted yesterday to allow people access to selected areas to retrieve vehicles and essential business equipment.
However, there was no access to the area where there are unstable buildings and where body recovery operations are continuing.
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