A 7.1 magnitude earthquake hit New Zealand's second biggest city Christchurch on early Saturday. Until now no deaths are reported. But the quake caused severe damage: bringing down power lines, ripping up roads and wrecking builings.Almost two-thirds of the 160'000 homes in and around Christchurch have been damaged.

A curfew was imposed from Saturady to Sunday to protect people from falling debries. As a series of aftershocks have been reported state of emergency has been prolongued until Wednesday 8 Spetember. The cost of repairs has been estimated at NZ$2bn ($1.44bn; £930m). Most households and businesses were expected to claim from their insurers and the Earthquake Commission (EQC), officials said.

New Zealand lies at the southern end of the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, and above an area of the Earth's crust where the Pacific Plate converges with the Indo-Australian Plate.The country experiences more than 14,000 earthquakes a year, of which only about 20 have a magnitude in excess of 5.0. The last fatal earthquake was in 1968, when a 7.1-magnitude tremor killed three people on the South Island's western coast.