Violent aftershocks hampered efforts to find survivors in the quake-ruined New Zealand city of Christchurch as the death toll climbed to 145 and was set to rise further.
Rescue teams from New Zealand and six countries including the United States, China, Japan and Australia scoured the rubble of levelled buildings in the central city and suburban areas hardest hit by Tuesday's 6.3 tremor, but found only bodies.
"We expect that number to rise as the search and rescue teams progressively find more and more deceased among the ruins," police commander Dave Cliff told reporters.
The dead include people from 20 nations, including dozens of students from Japan, China, India and Taiwan who were in Christchurch, one of New Zealand's most attractive cities, to learn English in view of the country's dramatic southern Alps.
Hopes of finding people alive five days after the quake were dimmed by aftershocks of up to magnitude 4.4, which brought down masonry and sent rescue teams scrambling for safety.
No further survivors have been found since a woman was rescued mid-afternoon on Wednesday.
The number of missing was still reported at more than 200, but police have said it is likely that the number includes recovered bodies that have yet to be identified.
In the central city, the search has concentrated on a finance company office block, the city's landmark cathedral and a local television building, which housed an English language school, but aftershocks were hampering efforts.
"Work did have to stop there temporarily during the period of falling masonry," said Mr Cliff.
More than half of the dead have come from the ruins of the Canterbury Television (CTV) building. About 65 people, including many missing Japanese and Chinese students, are believed to be inside, caught as floors pancaked down on one another.
"We're systematically removing layer upon layer of the debris. We're looking for voids in locations where we might find survivors...regrettably over recent times we've only been encountering the deceased," said fire rescue commander Jim Stuart Black.
Prime minister John Key described the disaster as potentially being "New Zealand's single most tragic event". He asked that the whole of the country observes two minutes' silence from 12.51pm on Tuesday, exactly one week after the magnitude 6.3 earthquake, as a sign of unity for its victims.
The prime minister also met families whose loved ones are missing since the tremor.
"They're full of fear because they recognise that a significant period of time has lapsed," he said.
"Some of them had their loved ones in the CTV building, and on the best advice we can possibly have, we don't think it's possible that anyone could have survived what has taken place at that building.
"But they also hold on to the hope that there's a chance that somebody in one of the other sites can come out alive."
More than 600 rescue workers scoured the city and hardest-hit suburbs, where broken water and sewage pipes, toppled power lines and ruptured gas mains have made large areas uninhabitable, forcing thousands to flee.
A British taskforce of disaster victim identification experts is heading to New Zealand. The UK team is due to arrive in Christchurch on South Island on Monday. The deployment comes after New Zealand accepted an offer of help from the British Government.
A British specialist rescue team arrived in the devastated city yesterday to help search for survivors among the flattened buildings. They were today working among the ruins of the Pyne Gould Corporation building in the centre of the city.
Thousands of volunteers from unaffected parts of the city or nearby towns converged on the worst-affected areas, where the quake forced up sand and water through roads and gardens. They shovelled sun-baked, grey sand contaminated with sewage and debris into metre high piles for removal.
Christchurch is built on shaky foundations of sand, silt and subterranean water which all churned together during the quake.
More than 300 Australian police arrived in the city on Friday, boosting the number of police to around 1,200, which police chief Cliff said would allow "assurance and security" patrols over a wide area of the city.
Early estimates of insurance losses have ranged from $3 billion to $12 billion. Prime minister John Key said the country's Earthquake Commission (EQC) disaster fund stood at about NZ$6 billion before the quake, with reinsurance in place and further government backing as needed.
Reuters, PA