Hopes fading fast for survivors in NZ quake

So far, ninety-eight bodies have now been recovered and taken to a temporary morgue, as Prime Minister John Key said the number could rise substantially.

According to official figures, 226 people are currently missing. Between 60 and 120 bodies alone could be beneath the collapsed Canterbury Television building, which has been deemed "unsurvivable". It contained the offices of a local TV station, a language school and a nursing school.

Prime Minister Key later said there were no survivors from the CTV building site, and that foreign nationals were among the dead.

Search and rescue personnel returned to the site on Wednesday evening, after withdrawing earlier because of the risk of collapse of the nearby Hotel Grand Chancellor, Christchurch's second tallest building.

Another 16 to 22 people are presumed to have died in the Christchurch Cathedral, which lost its spire and a section of roof, according to police sources.

However officials have also insisted it remains a ‘rescue’ operation and that specialists are still hunting for signs of life. Hundreds of foreign search and rescue specialists - from the US, UK, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan - arrived in the city on Thursday to help police and soldiers combing through the dangerously unstable ruins.

They used sniffer dogs, sound detectors, thermal imaging equipment and cameras to detect any signs of life, but as the day drew to a close there had been none. The last survivor was found Wednesday afternoon.

Despite the lack of results, many of the rescuers remain hopeful.

The earthquake struck at a shallow depth of 5km (3.1 miles) early in the afternoon on Tuesday, 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 for 80 years.

A JP Morgan analyst has estimated the insurance losses at $12 billion (€8.74 billion).