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Baxtor Gowland is the first quake victim to be buried. |
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Hundreds of mourners joined five-month-old Baxtor Gowland's relatives in the first funeral for victims of a 6.3 earthquake that destroyed the city of Christchurch.
The baby boy was asleep at home when he was hit by debris shaken loose by the quake on February 22. He later died in hospital.
Relatives clutched stuffed toys and wore looped baby-blue ribbons as they gathered at a small chapel, where a slideshow of the infant's photographs flashed on a screen.
"Bax, you are forever in our hearts we will always love you," his father Shaun McKenna wrote on a Facebook tribute page.
Authorities have named just eight victims of the disaster - including Baxtor and another infant.
The bodies of the 140 other victims are in a makeshift mortuary and have not yet been identified.
According to officials, some bodies were so badly injured that their identities may never be known.
Meanwhile, a team of more than 600 multinational rescuers, among them Britons, continued searching the wreckage.
But officials said it was "highly unlikely" any more survivors would be located.
No survivors have been found since a woman was pulled from a collapsed office building on Wednesday afternoon.
One man who was pulled out from the rubble has spoken about his ordeal for the first time.
The survivor said he wished for death as he lay in agony with his legs trapped under a collapsed wall.
Rescue workers called in doctors to amputate his legs with a pocket knife in order to free him and save his life.
"I just wanted there to be a decent aftershock to finish it," New Zealander Brian Coker said.
"I didn't know they were going to amputate my legs, but I should have known. They cut my trousers and they did that while I was still conscious.
"They had no choice."
New Zealand's Prime Minister John Key vowed the city would be rebuilt to standards of the upgraded building codes to guard against earthquake damage introduced in the 1970s.
SKYNEWS
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