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All property types ‘dip in value’

KeysThe UK housing market has started the new year in sluggish fashion

Every property type in England and Wales fell in value in January compared with a year earlier, according to the latest Land Registry figures.

The prices of semi-detached homes fell the most, dropping by 1.6% year-on-year to an average of £153,663.

In general, house prices dipped by 0.9% in January compared with January 2010, but rose 0.2% compared with December.

The figures again showed that there was a notable geographical divide in the direction of house prices.

Properties in London increased by 1.6% in January compared with December, and were up 2.4% compared with the same month a year earlier.

This meant the average home in the capital cost £341,871.

The only other region to register an annual price rise, as well as a month-on-month uplift, was the East of England. Here, prices crept up by 0.2% in January compared with January 2010, leaving the average home in the region worth £174,550.

At the other end of the scale, homes in Wales fell in value by 4.2% in January compared with December, and were down 6.1% year-on-year. The average home in Wales cost £116,217.

As well as providing regional figures, the Land Registry breaks down house prices to property types.

Regional house price annual changesLondon: up 2.4%East: up 0.2%South East: down 0.1%South West: down 0.4%West Midlands: down 1.4%East Midlands: down 1.9%North West: down 2.1%North East: down 2.5%Yorkshire and Humber: down 2.6%Wales: down 6.1%

Source: Land Registry – January 2011

This showed that, as well as semi-detached properties falling in value, detached homes fell in value by 0.2% in January compared with the same month a year earlier.

Terraced homes fell in value by 0.8%, and flats and maisonettes by 1.3%, over the same period.

The Land Registry’s figures are considered to be the most comprehensive of house price surveys, although the publication does lag behind other surveys.

However, these figures strengthen the conclusions drawn from other surveys which have shown that the turn of the year has been sluggish for the housing market.

The number of properties sold in England and Wales was lower towards the end of 2010 than during the same period a year earlier.

And figures on prospective mortgage lending suggest there will be little pick up in activity in the coming months.

Northern Rock has announced that it is to return to some level of riskier lending by offering mortgages of up to 90% of a property’s value for the first time since it was nationalised.

It is offering a two-year fixed rate home loan at 5.99%, a three-year loan at 6.49% and a five-year loan at 6.59%.

This is not the cheapest on the market, but the bank said these products were designed to appeal to potential first-time buyers unable to raise a large deposit.

Prior to nationalisation, the lender was criticised for offering Together mortgages, which allowed customers to borrow up to 125% of the value of a property.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Exchange serves up malicious ads

Fake security warning, Paul MuttonThe infection kicked off warnings from a fake security program
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Booby-trapped adverts that hit visitors with fake security software have been discovered on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) website.

Analysis of the LSE site suggests that over the last 90 days, about 363 pages had hosted malware.

The LSE said its site was now safe and an investigation showed that ads provided by a third party were the culprit.

One victim claimed his PC was made unusable after being infected.

Security expert Paul Mutton fell victim when he viewed the site on 27 February.

He visited the LSE homepage to find out why some people reported that they could not access it.

The site was blocked by Firefox, he said, but accessible via Google’s Chrome browser.

“It seemed to work with Chrome but then a few seconds later, without having to click on anything, pop-ups started to appear,” he said.

The sheer number of pop-up adverts made his computer unusable.

“I visited the site and it compromised my machine,” said Mr Mutton.

While he was fighting to close down the flood of pop-up adverts, another window appeared that appeared to be a fake security scanner which claimed to detect lots of different malware on the PC.

Analysis of the LSE homepage by Google’s safe browsing scheme, which scans web pages for malicious code, found the site had been listed for “suspicious activity 6 time(s) over the past 90 days”.

The last time it discovered malicious activity on the site was on 27 February, the day Mr Mutton visited.

Of the 1112 pages that Google scanned on the LSE site over the last 90 days, 363 were found to be hosting malware. The malicious code it found included scripting exploits and trojans.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at security firm Sophos, said: “Our suspicion would be that it was the third-party advertising network running via the site that delivered the malware.”

“This so-called ‘malvertising’ is big business for cyber criminals,” said Mr Cluley.

“If they are able to plant their poisonous adverts in the streams being used by major websites then it can spread their attacks far and wide,” he said.

While many sites rely on third-parties to provide adverts, that can have its risks, said Mr Cluley.

“Unfortunately when an infection does get through it’s likely that the users will blame the website, not the ad network,” he said.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

China pollution ‘to harm growth’

File image of a woman walking past a coal-fired power station in Beijing on 25 February 2011China’s rapid economic growth has left skies and waterways heavily polluted
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The man in charge of protecting China’s environment has warned that pollution and the demand for resources threaten to choke economic growth.

Environment Minister Zhou Shengxian said conflict between development and nature had never been so serious.

He said if China meant to quadruple the size of its economy over 20 years without more damage, it would have to become more efficient in resource use.

Otherwise, he said, there would be a painful price to pay.

His comments came ahead of China’s annual session of parliament, which opens on 5 March.

They also came a day after Premier Wen Jiabao said China was lowering its annual economic growth target from 7.5% to 7%, in part because of its impact on the environment.

Mr Zhou’s comments came in an essay posted on the website on the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

Analysis

Zhou Shengxian wants to see environmental protection become a key plank of the new Five Year Plan (2011-2015) to be debated during the annual session of the National People’s Congress.

Chinese ministers do not often publish their ideas like this. (It happened nearly two years ago when China’s central bank governor published a series of essays on reserve currencies and reform to the international financial system.)

The environment minister’s statement is an open call for a paradigm shift away from the model of high input, high resource consumption, and high pollution, to sustainable growth to ease the conflict between economic and social development, and the environmental damage it has caused in the past three decades.

Chinese scholars say China’s energy intensity per unit of GDP is at least five times that of Japan. Social stability is another factor as more people are enraged by worsening air, water and soil pollution.

It remains to be seen if his call will be translated into real action as China’s economic engine roars ahead.

“In China’s thousands of years of civilisation, the conflict between humanity and nature Zhou Shengxianhas never been as serious as it is today,” he wrote.

“The depletion, deterioration and exhaustion of resources and the deterioration of the environment have become serious bottlenecks constraining economic and social development.”

China, he said, would suffer unless issues of air and water pollution were prioritised.

He suggested that his ministry should take on a greater role in tackling greenhouse gas emissions and that new development projects be assessed for their impact on climate change.

In recent decades, development has been prioritised over the environment, meaning that China now has some of the most polluted skies and waterways in the world.

It relies heavily on coal and is the world’s leading CO2 emitter. It overtook the US as the world’s biggest car and van market in 2009.

In recent years there have been numerous examples of industrial spills or dumping that have damaged waterways and in some cases harmed residents.

The BBC’s Martin Patience in Beijing says that the government has repeatedly promised to tackle pollution, but then failed to enforced these decisions.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Views sought on high-speed rail

Concept image of high-speed trainThe new line – and high-speed trains – would cut the London to Birmingham journey time to 49 minutes
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The government is to begin its consultation on the proposed high-speed rail line from London to Birmingham.

The route would cut journey times by around half an hour, with work due to begin in 2015 if the plan is approved.

Opponents argue that the £17bn scheme will be a waste of money and that updating the existing West Coast mainline would be a better investment.

But Transport Secretary Philip Hammond says the high-speed line (HS2) will mean a £44bn boost for the UK economy.

The project – introduced by Labour and continued by the coalition government – has proved highly controversial, with many living along the proposed route complaining that it will damage the environment.

Groups campaigning against the scheme will demonstrate their disapproval on Monday by lighting a chain of beacons at beauty spots through which HS2 is scheduled to pass.

Opponents include not only residents’ groups and local councils but some Tory MPs, while the rail industry and business are in favour of the line.

Government documents being released later will give more details about the project.

Mr Hammond said: “HS2 will be a piece of national infrastructure which will bring benefits to Britain as a whole.

“Of course we will do everything we can to mitigate the impacts on areas like the Chilterns but projects like this have to be decided on the basis of the national interest and the overall net benefits it will bring to Britain.”

Mr Hammond will outline the case for HS2 at a conference in Birmingham.

There are plans to extend the line to Manchester and Leeds.

Last week almost 70 business leaders, including CBI director-general John Cridland and former British Airways chief executive Willie Walsh, gave their backing for HS2.

But Lizzie Williams, chairman of the Stop HS2 group, called the project “a complete waste of taxpayers’ money when we can least afford it”.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Councillor in ‘retard’ tweet rant

Hull city councillor John FarehamUnison is demanding action over the comment
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A councillor branded people protesting against cuts at a Hull City Council meeting “retards” in a rant on Twitter.

Conservative group leader John Fareham made the comment after Friday’s meeting, which saw the council approve a controversial £65m savings plan.

It read: “15 hours in council today very hard hitting day and the usual collection of retards in the public gallery spoiling it for real people.”

Mr Fareham, who has since apologised, has been criticised by Mencap.

Unison has demanded action is taken over his “disgraceful behaviour”.

Plans approved at the meeting, which was delayed due to hecklers, included the axing of 1,400 jobs and cuts to day care centres, leisure centres and highway budgets.

The Bricknell councillor said the comment was “misguided”, and added in a further Twitter post that it came after he was “abused for hours, returned home to excrement in house and saw intimidation”.

“I apologise unreservedly. I got it wrong and I’m sorry”

Councillor John Fareham Hull City Council

He added: “I apologise unreservedly for the adjective (sic) in my earlier tweet about the intimidation by some people. I got it wrong and I’m sorry.”

Unison regional organiser Steve Torrance said several people with physical and learning disabilities were in the public gallery at the time.

He added: “Not only are Councillor Fareham’s remarks offensive and unwelcome generally, they are of particular concern given that members of the public with disabilities were present in the gallery throughout the council debate as well as the people who care for them.

“Unison will be petitioning the next council meeting calling for the council leader to defend the rights of disabled people not to be abused in this way and for action to be taken over Councillor Fareham’s disgraceful behaviour towards members of the public and trade union members.”

Mr Fareham was reprimanded by the Lib Dem-run council’s standards committee last year for making derogatory remarks about other staff.

He was ordered to write a letter of apology and attend a training course.

A Mencap spokesman said: “Councillor Fareham has now apologised for using that language, both on Twitter and to Mencap.

“We campaign about the use of language offensive to people with a learning disability because we believe that it contributes to a culture where harassment and bullying of people with a learning disability is all too common.”

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

On the front line

Iain Duncan Smith on campaign trail in Easterhouse, Glasgow, ScotlandIain Duncan Smith, pictured here during a by-election visit to the Easterhouse estate in Glasgow, is spearheading a huge welfare shake-up
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Iain Duncan Smith describes welfare reform as his “mission”. But it is a mission which he is now having to pursue in the teeth of an economic blizzard blowing the other way.

The problem is the lack of jobs for people to take up. A situation only likely to get worse as public sector job cuts begin to bite and more graduates come on to the labour market.

So to find out just how just tough it is to find work, I went with the work and pensions secretary on a visit to the Walthamstow Jobcentre Plus, in north-east London.

What quickly became clear was that the people here were hardly the workshy or unemployable.

Many were skilled workers, with good employment records, decent CVs and little, if any, previous experience of unemployment.

Robert, a carpenter, tells Mr Duncan Smith, that in 25 years he has never known it so difficult to find work, vacancies, he says, are often filled before he has even been able to apply for them.

He is also scathing about the lack of work created locally as a result of the Olympics. (Something Mr Duncan Smith promises to look into).

Reuters

Diane, who lost her job with a housing association in October, tells us she has applied for more than 20 jobs without success – even though she has worked most of her life.

She is now worried that she and her husband risk losing their home because they can no longer keep up with their mortgage payments.

Mr Duncan Smith listens sympathetically and acknowledges that the lack of work for people like Diane and Robert is a serious concern.

“It’s a real issue,” he says “that people with skills can’t find a job when we say there is a skills shortage out there. We need to create the jobs.”

But Mr Duncan Smith is hopeful that with economic recovery, jobs will return. He points out that nationwide there are about half a million vacancies.

The figures at the Walthamstow Jobcentre are nevertheless daunting.

There are around 6,700 claimants registered at the centre, but on average only about 250 vacancies available each day.

The Jobcentre District Manager Graham Houghton believes that in many ways the job market now is tougher than following the recession of the 1980s.

“I think it is tough,” he says. “The labour market has changed; the nature of jobs has changed. A lot of people in east London worked in manufacturing and are now having to look at careers in customer service and security. That is a big, tough change.”

The problem is – even if economic recovery and welfare reform do in time make it easier to find work – in the short term the future looks extremely hard even for those with good skills and a strong work ethos.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Refunds of £2.5m for bogus bills

TalkTalk logo logoTalkTalk was threatened with fines from the regulator in November 2010
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Two telecoms firms, TalkTalk and Tiscali, have repaid nearly £2.5m to customers who were billed for services that had been cancelled.

The regulator Ofcom received more than 1,000 complaints but estimated some 62,000 could have been affected.

The customers had typically complained about aggressive demands for the payment of bills they did not owe.

Previously TalkTalk blamed a new billing system introduced after it bought Tiscali in June 2009.

Ofcom said that the two firms had taken steps to fix the problem.

An average of about £40 has been paid to thousands of customers in refunds or compensation payments.

People must be refunded if, since 1 January 2010, they have paid bills that should not have been levied.

And credit ratings agencies must be told to repair any damaged credit histories.

Ofcom launched an investigation in July 2010 about the case, following the complaints. The firms were told to pay compensation by December or face a financial penalty.

Fines have been ruled out by the regulator, for now, but it said it would continue to monitor the situation.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Egypt issues Mubarak travel ban

Hosni Mubarak - 18 May 2008Hosni Mubarak is reported to be in ill health

Egypt’s public prosecutor has issued a travel ban on ousted President Hosni Mubarak and his family.

The order also freezes their money and assets, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office said.

Mr Mubarak stepped down on 11 February, after almost 30 years in power, in the wake of mounting public protests.

He is believed to be in poor health, living in his villa in Sharm el-Sheikh, but has not been seen or heard of publicly since stepping down.

He handed power to the military, which appointed an interim government to write a new constitution and hold elections.

The prosecutor’s office said the travel ban and asset freeze was issued while complaints – which were not specified – against the Mubarak family were being investigated, Reuters news agency reported.

Egypt has already requested a number of governments to freeze the overseas assets of the Mubarak family.

Protesters and anti-corruption campaigners have been pressing for an investigation into the Mubarak family’s assets, put at anywhere from $1bn to $70bn (£616m-£43bn).

However, Mr Mubarak’s legal representative has denied reports that the former president amassed a fortune while in office.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

South Asia Libya rescue under way

Indian nationals from Libya arrive in DelhiThere are some 18,000 Indians in Libya

The Indian government has begun evacuating its nationals stranded in Libya with two special flight bringing back over 500 people.

A passenger ferry has also arrived in the Libyan city of Benghazi and will take evacuees to Alexandria in Egypt, from where they will be flown home.

Of some 18,000 Indians in Libya, about 3,000 are in Benghazi working for car companies and hospitals.

India has also sent three warships to help with the evacuation.

Two flights operated by the state-owned airline Air India have brought back 530 passengers since late Saturday.

Their relief at returning home was mixed with concern at those they left behind – some of whom they said were in remote industrial plants, where food and water was running out, says the BBC’s Mark Dummett.

Mohammed Sali, the first Indian to make it back home, told the BBC that he was looted of all his possessions at knife point as he reached Tripoli airport

Another passenger, Gigi John, said it was a “miracle” that the evacuees managed to “get out of Libya, safe and sound”.

“Many of us were forced to go without adequate food and drinking water for several days, and have been hearing harrowing tales of cruelty by the Col Muammar Gaddafi’s government,” she told The Hindu newspaper.

One evacuee said that even as the passengers lined up to collect their tickets at Tripoli airport, they were robbed of their mobile phones.

Many of the Indians in Libya come from the south of the country.

States like Kerala rely on the remittances sent back by millions of migrants working in Arab countries, and this is now an extremely anxious times for all their families.

About 100,000 people have fled anti-government unrest in Libya over the past week, the UN estimates.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Jacobi to appear at Belfast show

Sir Derek JacobiSir Derek Jacobi had lost his voice and was unable to perform
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The Grand Opera House in Belfast has confirmed that Sir Derek Jacobi will appear in King Lear at the theatre this week.

Three sell-out performances of King Lear in Wales at the weekend had to be cancelled because the actor had lost his voice.

They were planned for Friday and Saturday at Venue Cymru in Llandudno.

A spokesperson for the Grand Opera House said the performances in Belfast would proceed.

“The Grand Opera House is delighted to confirm that this week’s sell-out performances of King Lear, starring Derek Jacobi, will proceed as scheduled,” the statement said.

“The production team arrived this morning, and the curtain will go up to a full house on Tuesday at 7.30pm as planned.”

The Donmar Warehouse production of the Shakespearean play is scheduled to run at the theatre in Belfast from Tuesday until Saturday.

Gina McKee plays King Lear’s eldest daughter Goneril in the production.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

LHC ‘has two years to find Higgs’

Pallab GhoshBy Pallab Ghosh

CMS (Michael Hoch)CMS is one of two “multi-purpose” experiments housed at the LHC
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Researchers working at the Large Hadron Collider have said they expect to discover the Higgs boson particle by the end of 2012.

If the LHC does not turn up evidence of the Higgs during this run, physicists say they may have to significantly alter their views of physical laws.

The Higgs boson particle explains why other particles have mass, but it has not yet been observed by physicists.

The LHC is housed in a 27km-long tunnel under the French-Swiss border.

It smashes together proton particles travelling at close to the speed of light in a bid to uncover secrets of the Universe.

According to Professor Tom LeCompte of the Argonne National Laboratory, US, who works at the LHC: “The most likely place for the Higgs to be is in a very good place for us to discover it in the next two years.”

The LHC has now restarted after its winter shut down – and is about to embark on a run of work that could make or break the current view of how the Universe was formed.

The most widely accepted theory of particle physics requires the existence of the Higgs – and the detection of this particle is one of the LHC’s main objectives.

If the collider does not detect the Higgs within two years, researchers say they will know that it does not exist – at least in the form they thought.

“The Higgs is one model of many,” according to Professor LeCompte.

“It’s a model that we like. It’s simple, its elegant, but it’s entirely possible that there is something else beyond the Higgs that does its job instead, and what we may discover is instead of the Higgs itself we may discover something much more interesting.

“There could be multiple Higgses or there could be something completely different doing the same job as the Higgs in a completely different way.”

But he adds that not finding the Higgs may be more exciting than finding it – because researchers may have to have to modify their current view of sub-atomic physics.

“If we don’t see it after this two year run it means that something is perhaps not the way that we think it is, either the Higgs search itself had to be amended in some way or some of its indirect evidence may be pointing us in the wrong direction,” said Professor LeCompte.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Berlusconi back on trial in Italy

Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi (26 Feb 2011)The Italian leader faces four trials in the coming weeks

Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi has gone back on trial in Milan but, as expected, has not appeared in court.

The tax fraud case involving his Mediaset business empire is the first of four legal battles facing the Italian leader over the next few weeks.

The trial was suspended in April 2010 because of a law, now partially struck down, granting him temporary immunity.

Two related cases restart in March and he is in court for sex with an under-age prostitute and abuse of power.

Mr Berlusconi, 74, has denied all the allegations against him. He argues that he has been targeted as part of a left-wing campaign by Milan magistrates.

Monday’s trial involves allegations that Italy’s largest private broadcaster Mediaset inflated the price of rights to broadcast US movies bought via two offshore companies controlled by Mr Berlusconi.

Prosecutors say some of the money declared was skimmed off to create illegal slush funds.

The government’s immunity law was partially removed last month by Italy’s Constitutional Court. It ruled that individual judges should themselves decide whether Mr Berlusconi had a “legitimate impediment” as an elected official that prevented him from taking part in the hearings.

Although the prime minister did not turn up for Monday’s trial in Milan, his lawyers did not attempt to invoke any “legitimate impediment” for his absence from the courtroom, the Ansa news agency reported.

They said he would probably appear at the next hearing on 11 April, Ansa said.

The Italian leader is due to go on trial five days earlier on a charge of paying for sex with 17-year-old nightclub dancer Karima el Mahroug. Prostitution is legal in Italy, but sex with girls younger than 18 is not. He is also accused of trying to persuade police to release her from custody in an unrelated theft case.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Care homes ‘gold standard’ rating

Elderly man genericThere are more than 24,000 care homes in England

Care homes are to be invited to apply for a new excellence rating to allow residents to identify which are the best performers.

The Care Quality Commission scheme aims to reward homes which provide a gold standard of care beyond the norm.

There are more than 24,000 homes in England – the majority of which have been classed as providing good enough care.

The regulator hopes the new scheme will start in April 2012.

A consultation will be launched in May setting out the full details.

But the regulator is likely to be looking to reward those that provide top quality services and extra facilities.

This could include looking for qualifications staff have, the staff to resident ratio, the quality of food and range of activities provided.

At the moment, the registration system assess care homes on quality and safety. It a home is found to be meeting the minimum requirements it is given a registration, but there is little indication of just how good the service is.

CQC chief executive Cynthia Bower said she hoped the new scheme would rectify this.

“We do firmly believe that care providers should aspire to deliver the best possible outcomes. An excellence award can recognise best practice, be a spur to improvement for providers who already meet CQC’s essential standards, and can help people who need longer-term care to make choices.”

Martin Green, chief executive of English Community Care Association, which represents care homes, said the move was a “welcome development”, but said he was concerned that care homes would have to fund it on top of the registration system, pointing out the fees being paid by the state to providers were being reduced.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Quake survivors

Peter SymmsPeter Symms was crushed when the earthquake struck a cinema he and his wife were in
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Christchurch is beginning to bury its dead but extraordinary stories of heroism and survival are still emerging in New Zealand’s earthquake-hit city.

For some the difference between life and death was measured in just a few centimetres.

At the main hospital, 73-year-old Peter Symms, a retired lecturer from the Scottish borders south of Edinburgh, bears the bloodied scars of a terrifying ordeal.

On a rainy lunchtime last Tuesday, Peter and his wife had settled in to watch Fair Game, a political thriller at the cinema, when the magnitude 6.3 quake tore through Christchurch.

“We got to about three quarters of the way through the film, and then there was this bloody great explosion and the whole building started shaking,” he told the BBC from his hospital bed.

“The lights went out. My wife and I grabbed each other, and I think I must have passed out, and when I came to I could see the sky above.

“There was a concrete beam which came down, which is probably what did the damage. The seats had collapsed and my leg was wedged underneath a row of seats and some timber.

“And two men came in, and eventually a third man who was the duty manager for the cinema and they managed to get me out, and that was incredibly brave because there were aftershocks going all the time.”

Mr Symms had been saved by the bravery of strangers. He had suffered a fractured skull, while parts of the left side of his body, including ribs and an arm, were crushed.

Speaking publicly for the first time, he was moved to tears as he recounted parts of his astonishing experience.

British search-and-rescue workers in ChristchurchBritish workers have been involved in the search-and-rescue operation in Christchurch

“One of the people that lifted me out was, I think, from Seattle. And he was a lightly built man, about 60,” he said.

“Quite incredible, he got completely covered in my blood. And then other people, when we got outside, which took about 15 minutes, they came up and they put their clothes over me and over my wife. So it was really quite amazing.”

While some have escaped death by the narrowest of margins – another few centimetres and Mr Symms would probably be dead – many others here have lost their homes.

They face the awful prospect of having to conquer their fears of more earthquakes if they are to stay and start again.

Siobhan Grimshaw, an occupational therapist from Newcastle in County Down, who migrated to New Zealand seven years ago, is not sure if her family will rebuild their shattered home that was a couple of kilometres from the quake’s epicenter.

“Initially all I could think of was that we had to get out of Christchurch. I thought we could go and live in Australia, but I thought no, floods [there],” she said.

“Nowhere is safe. I was telling my husband we have to get out of Christchurch and we can’t ever live here again. And he was saying ‘Yes we can, it’ll be alright, we can rebuild’.

“I’ve settled down and I can see that, yes, we can rebuild, maybe,” Mrs Grimshaw said with some hesitation moments after another aftershock had caused the ground to shake.

In this nervous city, the search for survivors continues but hopes are fading as each hour passes.

Only a handful of the dead have been formally identified and the British High Commissioner to New Zealand, Vicki Treadell, says UK specialists will soon arrive to help.

“We have seen in earlier disasters where identification has not been done properly, that the wrong bodies go to the wrong families, and that exacerbates grief and is deeply traumatic in itself,” she said.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.