The city of Christchurch marked on Friday the eighth anniversary of an earthquake that killed 185 people and caused extensive damage from which New Zealand's oldest city is still recovering.
Of the victims, 115 people were killed when the six-story Canterbury Television Building collapsed. Among them were 28 Japanese, as well as other foreign nationals, who were studying English at a language school on the third floor of the building.
A small service at the Canterbury Earthquake National Memorial on the banks of the Avon River included a minute's silence at 12:51 p.m. to mark the exact time the magnitude 6.3 quake struck on Feb. 22, 2011.