New Zealand earthquake toll rises to 103; hundreds missing (VIDEO)

The death toll from Tuesday's 6.3-magnitude earthquake in Christchurch rose 103, with 228 listed as missing — 90 of them from a language school.

Prime Minister John Key has said emergency operations would shift from rescuing survivors to body recovery, and that finding anyone alive would be a "miracle," despite the participation of hundreds of people reportedly going building to building using sound detectors, thermal imaging equipment and cameras.

Many of those on the list of missing were thought to be inside the six-story Canterbury TV (CTV) building when it collapsed. Authorities said there was no hope that anyone under the rubble could still be alive. 

The building housed the King's Education college, which teaches English to students from across Asia. The school did not identify the missing students by nationality — but most of the names on a list provided by the college appeared to be Japanese, Chinese, South Korean or Thai, according to VOA.

A New Zealand website — Stuff.com — said one young Chinese woman managed to send a text to her family in Guangzhou saying she was trapped in the building. She has not been heard from since.

Canterbury district police commander Dave Cliff said 16 to 22 bodies were believed to be trapped in the rubble of the city's Holy Cross Cathedral, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.

Meanwhile, a 5-month-old boy, Baxtor Gowland, born two weeks after the first earthquake rocked Christchurch in September, was named the youngest confirmed victim of Tuesday's quake. The larger (7.1-magnitude) quake hit the South Island city on Sept. 4. 

Tuesday's quake struck hit close to the surface of the earth just before 1 p.m. Tuesday as the New Zealand south island city was at its busiest.

At a media conference in Wellington this morning, Civil Defense Minister John Carter said the death toll had risen to 102 overnight with the recovery of five more bodies from downtown Christchurch. Soon after, Superintendent Russell Gibson told TV3 that another body had been found and the toll had reached 103.

Carter said he understood the last "live rescue" of a survivor had been about 3 p.m. on Wednesday, according to the New Zealand Herald. That was the "miracle" rescue of Ann Bodkin, who was discovered trapped in a tiny space beneath her desk in a collapsed building 26 hours after the earthquake struck.

Carter said search and rescue workers in Christchurch were doing an "amazing, outstanding job." The search had shifted to places like alleyways, where people might have been trapped by falling rubble as they went to and from lunch on Tuesday.

Christchurch mayor Bob Parker said Thursday that emergency workers would not be giving up the search of buildings in the downtown area and suburbs, despite the announced focus on body recovery.

"We're not giving up, we're putting more people in," Parker said. "We're doing more all the time. And then out in the other parts of the city and in the central city it's [about] getting water to people, getting the electricity back as quickly as we can, getting the [portable toilets] in, because we're not going to have waste water systems working well for quite some time."

Footage of the New Zealand earthquake was caught CCTV in Christchurch shops.

— Freya Petersen