Multiple fatalities have been reported after a 6.3 magnitude earthquake rocked the New Zealand city of Christchurch on Tuesday. The highest-level state of emergency has been declared for the city.

Building facades toppled to the streets, crushing cars and buses, and trapping people under rubble, as well as inside fractured and fallen buildings.

[Local resident]:
“The floor just went from underneath you, and then the ceiling just came down to meet them, and we were in a spot, about three feet. And that was it. But luckily, we were sort of not at the edge of the building, which I think, we would have been at the edge of the building rather than the about two meters in, we would have been squashed.”

Communication services have been severely affected. This desperate mother awaits news from her son.

[Local resident]:
“I still don’t know where he is. I just received the text because my phone’s not working. He’s going: “Please ring me Mum, ring me,” and he sent me a text saying that he loves me. But I didn’t even give him a hug before I left the doctor’s. And they’re just talking about the earthquakes now. I’m not going anywhere till I see them, till they bring my son out, so we’re here.”

New Zealand Civil Defense Minister John Carter spoke to the press, saying police and army personnel have started going through the damaged buildings.

He says they intend to work through the night until every building has been completely evacuated.

The city’s iconic cathedral lay in ruins, its spire crashed down onto the street. Witnesses say there were people inside when the quake struck, but due to safety concerns, no one was allowed inside to check until it was given the all clear.

[John Key, New Zealand Prime Minister]:
“I don’t think we can go past the fact that we may well be witnessing New Zealand’s darkest day. The advice I’ve had at the moment, I think the viewers will understand and appreciate that it’s very fluid advice at the moment, but the death toll I have at the moment is 65, and that may rise. So look, it’s an absolute tragedy for this city, for New Zealand, for the people we care so much about. And it’s a terrifying time for the people.”

People fled as debris fell from buildings during the powerful aftershocks, which themselves measured in the mid-4s and mid-5s on the Richter scale.

Police did their best to maintain as much order as possible, while emergency services and bystanders rushed to free people trapped in the rubble.

[John Key, New Zealand Prime Minister]:
“This earthquake has taken place at a time when Cantaburians were going about their business. It was a very populated time with people at work, children in school.”

Christchurch, in the region of Canterbury, was hit by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake in September last year. Though higher on the Richter scale, having occurred at 4:35 am when most people were sleeping, and at a depth of six miles, it did not cause any fatalities.

Today’s quake, however, has been a lot more devastating because it struck in the middle of the day, at 12:50 pm local time, and occurred at a more shallow depth of 3.1 miles, 6.2 miles south of the city.

Gabriel Georgiou, NTD News, Australia

It’s the second quake to hit Christchurch, New Zealand, in a matter of months.

The first one hit in the early hours of last September 4, measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale.

Today’s quake was lower on the Richter scale than last year’s, but occurred closer to Christchurch and the Earth’s surface and therefore had a more devastating impact.

According to the ABC, an earthquake hazards expert from Geoscience Australia suggests that the stress may have been transferred from the September quake to a different segment of possibly the same fault line.

Christchurch, the country's second largest city, is certainly not new to earthquakes, averaging more than 14-thousand a year. But this one is the biggest disaster to hit New Zealand in decades.

Gina Shakespeare, NTD News, Australia.

On Tuesday Japanese authorities arrested three Hong Kong citizens believed to be part of a string of robberies in Japan.

The alleged gang members were arrested in the northern island of Hokkaido after their DNA was found on tools left behind at the crime site.

They are accused of robbing two jewelry stores last year.

Both stores were broken into through a hole in the exterior wall of the shops by construction equipment.

Authorities suspect that the group was involved in many robberies throughout Asia.

In her annual address to federal lawmakers, Indian President Pratibha Patil said the federal government would take all measures to ensure complete transparency in its actions.

A multi-million dollar 2G telecom scam deprived the state of billions of dollars and scared off investors.

Patil said the government was considering a series of measures to weed out corruption.

[Pratibha Patil, President of India]:
"Our people have the right to good governance. It is their right, and our duty. My government is committed to improve transparency and honesty in its functioning. A group of ministers is considering all measures, including legislative and administrative, to tackle corruption and improve transparency.”

Corruption, combined with high inflation, especially in food, has taken the gleam off India's fast growing economy for both voters and investors.

Patil emphasized the need to encourage more foreign investment to sustain economic growth amid signs of an increasingly fragile investment climate.

[Pratibha Patil, President of India]:
"We should not be content with our achievements. We have to strive to make the domestic environment more conducive to investment, encouraging public as well as private investment, and domestic as well as foreign investment, particularly foreign direct investment. We would have to maintain our process of economic reforms."

Reflecting on the row over black money stashed away in foreign banks, the president said the government would initiate steps to address the issue.

[Pratibha Patil, President of India]:
"The government is worried with the negative impact of issues related to black money. Be it the wealth gathered by evading tax on clean money, or wealth accumulated illegally, both are issues of concern. My government is committed to solve this issue on a priority basis."

According to Swiss bank data, India has more black money than the rest of the world combined… almost 1.5 trillion U.S. dollars.

The Japanese man accused of killing a British English teacher in 2007 has returned to the limelight again.

Tatsuya Ichihashi’s book, entitled "Until I Got Arrested: A Memoir of the Missing 2 years and 7 months", has lined bookstores across Japan following its release last month. The book has sold over one hundred thousand copies.

It details Ichihashi’s account of how he managed to evade the police for two and a half years after being accused of murdering British teacher Lindsay Ann Hawker.

Ichihashi is currently on trial for Hawker’s death. She was found brutally murdered and buried in sand in a bathtub on the balcony of Ichihashi's apartment.

Yet despite hardly any pre-publicity, some of the bookstores say the book has sold well.

[Yoshikawa Nao, BOOK1st Sales Staff]:
"This was quite sudden and the book was published without warning but we have been getting a lot of inquiries and the book has been selling pretty well."

A Japanese pop culture specialist and columnist describes Ichihashi's book as essentially self-centered.

[Shunichi Karasawa, Pop Culture Specialist and Columnist]:
"His own persona and ego is the most important thing in the world, and he doesn't think much about adjusting to the social norms, or to think that someone else has their life to live as well... He seems to lack the ability to care about others and he acts maniacally and selfish and emotional in his accounts."

In the book's dedication Ichihashi says he does not want to accept any of the proceeds from the sales of the book, and wants the money to go to either the Hawker family or charity.

Karasawa says, however, that Ichihashi's accounts show no other sign of remorse.

[Shunichi Karasawa, Pop Culture Specialist and Columnist]:
"The fact is that he robbed her of her life, but I feel almost no remorse from his book."

Many Japanese were shocked the book was published at all.

[Yoshimi Nariai, Businessman]:
"I don't understand how he had the nerve to kill someone he liked and then write a book about it. I wonder how he can bring himself to write such a book. Similarly, I don't know why anyone would even want to think about buying his book! This world's really gone weird."

A few admit they were curious.

[Yoko Fujii]:
"I am curious to know what psychological mindset compelled him to write this book. These things rarely are published, so I do have interest in it, but really it's just out of curiosity."

Lindsay Hawker moved to Japan in October 2006 to become an English teacher at a major English school in Tokyo. Ichihashi allegedly approached Miss Hawker on her train ride home from her work and asked her to become his private tutor.

Ichihashi’s first court appearance has yet to be confirmed.

On Monday the Japanese government began excavating a site that was used as a military hospital in Tokyo during World War II.

[Kazuhiko Kawauchi, Welfare Ministry Group Official]:
"We're now excavating this site to confirm the existence of any human remains, which I believe would be only bones now."

Unit 731 has been accused of conducting biological and chemical warfare experiments on about three thousand Korean, Chinese and Russian prisoners between 1937 and 1945… done mostly in China.

The Unit, part of the Japanese military during World War II, was based near Harbin in northeast China but headquartered on the site of the former Tokyo Army Hospital.

If this latest excavation turns up anything, it would be the second batch of bones found since 1989 at the site of Unit 731's former headquarters.

This latest excavation was prompted by a former nurse recalling that there were bones at a different location.

Previously some Japanese historians have said that those bones were from cadavers used by the medical school located on the site, and a 1992 government enquiry cleared the bones of being those from biological experiments.

The Japanese government has neither denied nor acknowledged the activities of Unit 731, believed by many historians to have conducted tests on humans to develop biological weapons, including anthrax and bubonic plague.