N. Zealand prays for quake victims

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand (AP) ― New Zealand’s premier said the Christchurch quake may be the country’s worst disaster ever, as officials raised the toll to 146 dead and more than 200 missing while giving a grim prognosis for the city’s downtown.

Residents said prayers for the dead and missing at church services Sunday in Christchurch and across New Zealand. But church leaders canceled a planned multi-denominational service in a Christchurch park because of concerns it could block access roads for emergency services.

“As our citizens make their way to church this Sunday they will be joined in prayer by millions around the world,” Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker said. “For now we are truly comforted by the thoughts and prayers of so many.”

Engineers and planners said the city’s decimated central area may be completely unusable for months to come and that at least a third of the buildings must be razed and rebuilt after last Tuesday’s 6.3-magnitude quake.

The death toll from the quake reached 146 Sunday, and Police Superintendent David Cliff said that “certainly we expect that number to continue to rise.”

“There are more than 200 people missing in the worst-damaged parts of the city,” he told reporters.

His comments suggest the eventual death toll could make this New Zealand’s deadliest disaster ever. Currently, the country’s worst disaster was the 1931 Napier earthquake on North Island in which at least 256 people died.

Earlier, Police Inspector Russell Gibson said rescuers had spotted more bodies in the wreckage which likely would be retrieved Sunday.

The multinational team of more than 600 rescuers scrabbling through wrecked buildings in the central city last pulled a survivor from the ruins at mid-afternoon Wednesday, making it nearly four days without finding anyone alive.

Rescue coordinator Jim Stuart-Black said Sunday that rescuers continued “to look in every possible place for survivors.”

“We are still in active rescue mode ... but we are also realistic that we are starting to move into the miracle stage of the operation,” he said, with survival becoming less likely six days after the quake.

Rescue and recovery efforts were hampered by continuing aftershocks, which sent masonry tumbling down, and a cat sparked a false alarm over a possible survivor on Saturday.

Prime Minister John Key said the government would announce an aid package Monday for an estimated 50,000 people who will be out of work for months due to the closure of downtown. Key called for two minutes of silence on Tuesday to remember both victims and the ordeal of the survivors.

“This may be New Zealand’s single-most tragic event,” Key said.

On the outer edge of the central district, Brent Smith watched in tears Saturday as workers demolished the 1850s-era building where he lived and ran a bed and breakfast and where antique jugs and a $6,000 Victorian bed were reduced to shards and firewood.

His three daughters hugged him, also weeping.

“You don’t know whether to laugh or cry, but I’ve been doing more of the latter,” Smith said.

Parker assured relatives of the missing ― including people from several countries who have converged on this southern New Zealand city of 350,000― that every effort was being made to locate any remaining survivors.

Police have said up to 120 bodies may be entombed in the ruins of the downtown CTV building alone, where dozens of foreign students from an international school were believed trapped.

The King’s Education language school released a list of missing people presumed in the building: nine teachers and 51 students ― 26 Japanese, 14 Chinese, six Filipinos, three Thais, one South Korean and one Czech. An additional 20 students were listed with “status unknown.”

The city’s central business district will take several months to recover, Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee said, adding that “most of the services, in fact all of the services that are offered in the CBD, will need to relocate elsewhere.”

Damaged buildings will need to be bulldozed and rebuilt “so that people can have confidence about coming back into the area to transact any business that’s here.”

One in three of the central city’s buildings were severely damaged in the quake and must be demolished, earthquake engineer Jason Ingham said.

In one neighborhood, the Butcher family spent Saturday retrieving a handful of salvagable belongings from their destroyed house ― a couple of blankets, a stack of dishes, a Mickey Mouse mug, a box of crackers. They’re staying with friends, but hope to buy a campervan.

Maree Butcher, 49, said she finds herself shaking awake with memories of Tuesday’s horror every night around 3:30 a.m. She lies in bed and stares at her husband, Norm, who was nearly killed racing out the back door of their home as the brick walls blew out around him and the top floor collapsed to the ground.

Norm tried to cheer her up, nodding toward the wreckage and saying, “I really did want the open entertainment area.”

Maree smiled. “We’ve lost our house and belongings,” she said.

“But we’re still alive.”