Central Christchurch is in ruin with cracks in the streets, buildings collapsed and the landmark cathedral not spared – death appears certain this time.

Francis, a girl who works in the Price Waterhouse Coopers building and was spoken with by SunLive, says she stared in horror from the 13^th storey of her workplace as the five storey building across the street, the Pyne Gould Guinness building on Cambridge Terrace, collapsed at 12.51pm.

Buildings collapsed across the city.

With a stunned waver in her voice, 'I watched the Pyne Gould building fall into a pile of bricks.

'People will be dead.”

Now out on the streets, Francis is joined by survivors in central Christchurch as they survey the damage.

'There is liquefaction bubbling up through the ground in Victoria and Cranmer Squares.”

The cathedral was not spared this time, after it survived the September earthquake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale only caused minor damage.

This time, in an earthquake with a preliminary measure of 6.1 on the Richter scale according to GNS Science, the entranceway on the western side of the cathedral has sustained significant damage – its spire is half collapsed and other brick work has fallen.

People who were inside the cathedral during the earthquake have survived.

'I saw the Dean in the square, he was clambering over the rubble,” says Francis.

There are also reports that people are trapped inside the cathedral.

Other buildings in Cathedral Square have also sustained major damage, but there are reports of survivors from many of them.

Workers on the eighth floor of the BNZ Building on the southern edge of Cathedral Square are confirmed alive.

Death is a certainty with this earthquake, reports from the New Zealand Police and Fire Service confirm buildings have collapsed onto buses, killing people and with other fatal episodes around the city.

For the survivors, the city is in gridlocked turmoil and major institutions evacuated including the hospital and university.