At least two Japanese were trapped under rubble and another 11 remained unaccounted for Tuesday after a powerful quake struck the city of Christchurch in New Zealand, officials said.
They were part of a group of 23 English-language students and teachers on a one-month study trip from the Toyama College of Foreign Languages, located in the central Japanese prefecture of Toyama.
Several members of the group were in the fourth-floor cafeteria of the King's College building when the 6.3-magnitude quake struck at lunch-time, reducing the building to rubble.
The school was first alerted to the disaster when one female teacher contacted her family in Japan by mobile phone text message, saying she was trapped inside the building with seven students.
Toyama officials later said the 43-year-old female teacher and a total of eight others had been rescued, including a student who suffered broken bones.
Additionally a male foreign teacher, 48, from the group was also safe.
Japan's government said it was sending a fact-finding team to New Zealand and stood by to offer additional help.
Kyodo News reported, quoting an unnamed government source, that Japan plans to send an emergency quake rescue team to New Zealand.
Like New Zealand, Japan sits on the "Pacific Ring of Fire" zone of seismic activity and is also often hit by powerful earthquakes.
Share This Article With Planet Earth
