Their task is to enter highly restricted and prohibited areas, putting their lives on the line to save others.

Cancer survivor Sam Struthers says that victory was nothing compared with surviving this week's earthquake.

The Crusaders early this morning withdrew from their Super 15 match against the Hurricanes in Wellington on Saturday.

Bear Grylls, extreme adventurer, is in New Zealand and has some survival tips for earthquake victims.

It's only when you start walking the streets of Lyttelton that the real extent of the damage becomes obvious.

'Ten seconds either way' was the difference between life and death for CTV building survivor David Horsley.

Hope is fading for hundreds of people missing for a second night after the Christchurch earthquake.

Prime Minister John Key yesterday saw for himself the grim situation confronting earthquake survivors.

At least one Australian "family man" is among the Christchurch earthquake dead and the Australian government has warned the public to brace for more bad news.

Yesterday's quake - the death toll for which stands at 75 - may prove to be NZ's worst natural disaster.

Police say more than 100 people may have been lost in Christchurch's quake-ravaged Canterbury TV building, which they say is "unsurvivable". The official toll from yesterday's devastating quake stands at 75.

At least 14 people are missing from two companies in the Pyne Gould building in Christchurch tonight.

A woman trapped in rubble left a harrowing message for her son, in which she said she didn't think she would survive.

Declaring a national state of emergency is an option when a disaster or other event is or is likely to be of such severity that it is beyond the resources of the local Civil Defence groups.

Six people have today been arrested for theft and burglary in the quake-hit Christchurch CBD.

Police have abandoned all hope of finding survivors at the collapsed Canterbury TV building in central Christchurch, with a police chief saying he was "100 per cent" certain those trapped inside were dead.

Search and rescue teams could continue looking for survivors for a second night following yesterday's Christchurch earthquake, Civil Defence national controller David Coetzee says.

In an emotional reunion, a woman trapped for more than 25 hours in a cramped, dark space in the destroyed PGG building has finally been rescued and reunited with her worried husband.

Rescue personnel have been pulled back from the central city as the 26-storey Hotel Grand Chancellor building is on the verge of collapse.

Christchurch's Rolleston prison will be cleared to create beds for the influx of rescuers into the city.

Hundreds of specialist search and rescue personnel from around the world are arriving in Christchurch.

Rescue services have stopped work at CTV and are now focusing on the Pyne Gould building, where as many as 50 people are thought to still be alive.

A man who has more than a dozen close friends and colleagues missing in earthquake-devastated central Christchurch says all he can do is wait and hope they are still alive.