No bodies found in NZ quake cathedral

SEARCHERS in New Zealand have said that, contrary to widespread speculation, no-one died in the rubble of Christchurch's well-known cathedral.

The announcement was a rare piece of good news in the final days of a grim recovery operation following the earthquake that devastated New Zealand's second-largest city and killed at least 165 people.

Authorities had feared that as many as 22 people were inside the cathedral's stone bell tower when it was toppled by a magnitude 6.3 quake on 22 February.

Police superintendent Sandra Manderson said search and rescue teams had completed excavating the area and confirmed no-one was trapped inside what had been a major tourist attraction. The Dean of Christchurch, the Rev Peter Beck, was "absolutely elated," she added.

Manderson said she hoped the surprise good news would bring down the estimated death toll from as high as 240 to around 220. She said she was investigating what the estimate of 22 people in the tower had been based on.

Police yesterday released the names of six more victims whose identities were confirmed among the dead, including one foreigner, a South Korean. Just 26 of the 165 bodies have been publicly identified. Authorities say the process is slow and painstaking because of the extreme nature of the injuries caused to some of those caught in collapsing buildings.