The mood in earthquake-ruined central Christchurch is growing increasingly tense as police and security staff worry about the possible further collapse of building facades.
Police said they couldn't understand why people would want to walk around danger zones.
"Do people understand what has happened here?" an officer said.
"Any aftershock could bring down these damaged buildings and they want to walk around here. We don't have time to babysit everyone."
It has proved impossible to get some people to listen and police have resorted to threatening those people with arrest.
A magnitude 6.3 quake ripped through the centre of the city on Tuesday, with the death toll so far standing at 71, but expected to rise much higher.
The Canterbury Television building collapsed, trapping more than 100 people, and the Pyne Gould Corporation building buckled and fell to the ground in a mangled mess of metal, concrete and piping.
Rescue services have been concentrating efforts on these two spots, but many other buildings are causing stress and angst to police and security as they try to keep rubberneckers safe.
Apart from the towering Hotel Grand Chancellor, which is tilted and expected to be demolished even if it doesn't fall, there are buildings with massive wounds in their brick work.
Jagged panes of glass hang out of broken windows. They look ready to fall, with or without the constant strong aftershocks.
An engineer told reporters this morning that he expected a number of CBD building facades to collapse today in areas not specifically cordoned off.
He said it was "freaking him out" to see people wander around, unaware that at any time bricks or glass could fall on them.
Police and the army have tightened security as best they can and there are fewer people wandering the streets to gape at the damage to buildings waiting to crumble.
Apartment buildings lean and creak over roads and containers have been set up in front of those most precarious.
- NZPA
View Christchurch earthquake: Map of the destruction in a larger map
