Rescue workers recover a victim from the rubble of the CTV Building in Christ church
President Bharrat Jagdeo has offered condolences to the people and government of New Zealand on the loss of lives and damage sustained in the earthquake that struck the city of Christchurch days ago.
“We share your sorrow and grief,” Jagdeo said in a letter to that country’s prime minister, John Key, last Friday. He assured the New Zealand Prime Minister that Guyana is praying that the city soon rebounds from the tragedy, and that the lives of those affected be restored to a level of normalcy.
“Please accept, Excellency, my best wishes for your country’s swift recovery,” the letter read.
The earthquake struck at a shallow depth of 5km (3.1miles) on Tuesday at 12:51 local time, when the South Island city was at its busiest.
It was Christchurch’s second major tremor in five months, and New Zealand’s deadliest natural disaster in 80 years.
The death toll from the earthquake had, up to press time, risen to 113, as authorities said they feared that another 228 people listed as missing would not be found alive. Foreign Minister Murray McCully said last Friday that the rescue focus following Tuesday’s 6.3 magnitude earthquake is nearing an end. He said he is preparing to give families from several countries “the worst type of news.” Seventy survivors of the quake were pulled from crumbled buildings in the first 25 hours after the tremor hit, but no one has been rescued since Wednesday.
Hundreds of police, soldiers and searchers continued to comb the wreckage, looking for anyone who might yet be trapped alive. But authorities said they believed there were no survivors buried in the rubble of Christchurch’s landmark cathedral. They also hold out little hope of finding survivors at a collapsed five-storey building that housed a television station and an English language school.
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