I hope everyone there is ok.

NZ's 'darkest day': Earthquake kills at least 65

* By Joe Morgan
* From: AP
* February 22, 2011 5:39PM

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THE powerful earthquake in Christchurch has killed at least 65 people and trapped dozens in what the New Zealand Prime Minister has said could be the country's "darkest day".

"It is a just a scene of utter devastation," Prime Minister John Key has said after rushing to the city within hours of the quake.

He has said the death toll is 65 and may rise. "This may be New Zealand's darkest day," he told TV One News.

It is the second time a major quake has hit the city of 350,000 in five months. Today's 6.3-magnitude quake was an aftershock which struck closer to downtown than the tremor that heavily damaged Christchurch last September but caused no deaths. It struck before dawn on a weekend.

Video footage has shown some multistorey buildings collapsed in on themselves, and others with walls that have collapsed into the streets, strewn with bricks and shattered concrete. Sidewalks and roads are cracked and split, and thousands of dazed, screaming and crying residents have wandered through the streets as sirens blared.

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* At least 65 killed in NZ quake Adelaide Now, 25 minutes ago
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Groups of people helped victims clutching bleedings wounds, and others were carried to private vehicles in makeshift stretchers fashioned from rugs or bits of debris.

The spire of the iconic stone Christchurch Cathedral toppled into a central city square.

Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker declared a state of emergency and ordered people to evacuate the city centre. Troops were deployed to help people get out and to throw up a security cordon around the stricken area, said Deputy Prime Minister Bill English.

The airport was closed, and Christchurch Hospital was briefly evacuated before it was deemed safe and patients were returned. Power and telephone lines were knocked out, and pipes burst, flooding the streets with water.

Some cars parked on the street were buried under rubble. Some people were stuck in office towers and firefighters climbed extension ladders to pluck people trapped on roofs to safety. A crane lifted a team of rescuers on a platform to one group of survivors in a high-rise. Plumes of gray smoke drifted into the air at several points around the city from fires burning in the rubble.

Mr Key held an emergency Cabinet meeting then rushed to the stricken city to observe the scene. He has said eight or nine buildings have collapsed, and that officials are working as fast as they can to free an unknown number of people who are trapped.

New Zealand police have said reports of fatalities included that two buses had been crushed by falling buildings.

Trapped

Gary Moore has said he and 19 other colleagues were trapped in their twelfth floor office after the stairwell collapsed in the quake. He did not know if people on other floors were trapped.

"We watched the cathedral collapse out our window while we were holding onto the walls," Mr Moore said. "Every aftershock sends us rushing under the desks. It's very unnerving but we can clearly see there are other priorities out the window. There has been a lot of damage and I guess people are attending to that before they come and get us."

The multistorey Pyne Gould Guinness Building, housing more than 200 workers, collapsed and an unknown number of people are trapped inside. Television pictures have shown rescuers, many of them office workers, dragging severely injured people from the rubble. Many had blood streaming down their faces. Screams could be heard from those still trapped.

Two large aftershocks - one magnitude 5.6 and another 5.5 - have hit the city within two hours of the main quake, and officials have warned people to stay away from damaged buildings because of the danger of further collapses.

"When the shaking had stopped I looked out of the window, which gives a great view onto Christchurch, and there was just dust," said city councilman Barry Corbett, who was on one of the top floors of the city council building when the quake struck. "It was evident straight away that a lot of buildings had gone."

A search and rescue team was being flown in from Australia to help in the recovery, and Prime Minister Julia Gillard has said she has offered Mr Key any other support he requested.

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oh my, that's a really bad earth quake.