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Rescue and recovery efforts are underway in New Zealand after a powerful earthquake shook the city of Christchurch in the middle of a busy work day, killing at least 65 people and injuring dozens more.
The 6.3 magnitude quake struck at 12:51 p.m. Tuesday local time, and was very shallow in depth, measuring just 2.5 miles beneath the surface, causing violent shaking, and widespread damage.
Video footage showed buildings collapsed, bricks scattered onto streets, roads and sidewalks cracked.
Nearly 200 people are feared trapped amid the structures, according to Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker.
"The building just exploded," said resident Barry Saunders, in an interview with Radio New Zealand. "It was just like a movie. It took three or four seconds to comprehend what was going on."
The U.S. Geological Survey said Tuesday's quake was centered 3 miles from the city.
Two large aftershocks – one magnitude 5.6 and another 5.5 – shook Christchurch within hours of the initial quake.
The latest tremor came just 5 months after a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck the city of 350,000.
That quake in September caused no deaths but badly damaged buildings throughout the city, many of them the same structures that collapsed Tuesday.
Prime Minister John Key described a scene of "utter devastation" and vowed to work as fast as possible.
"This is a community that is absolutely in agony," Key said. "We will get through this. New Zealand will regroup and Christchurch will regroup."
Parker declared a state of emergency shortly after the quake hit, and ordered people to evacuate the city center.
Troops were deployed to helped victims trapped amid the rubble, the airport was closed, and the Christchurch Hospital briefly evacuated before it was deemed safe for patients to return.
Some people were stuck in office towers, forcing firefighters to extend their ladders to rescue people trapped on roofs. Among the dead, passengers on board two buses crushed by falling buildings.
The head of a foreign language school in western Japan reported 23 of their students and teachers were trapped underneath a collapsed building.
Hiro Yoshida said they were eating lunch in a cafeteria when the quake struck. Nine students and two teachers were accounted for, but a dozen others were still missing.
Images shown on New Zealand television showed residents walking amid the rubble in a daze, some badly injured from falling debris.
Newspaper editor Andrew Holden said he heard glass cracking and falling throughout the building, clouds of dust billowing through the newsroom.
"The roof above the main staircase collapsed so there was a fair bit of rubble down the staircase," Holden said, in an interview with Radio New Zealand. "We've had some good size shocks before but when you've got a quake of that size that just continues on and on." ABC News Radio and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
ABC
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