victims of earthquake in NZealand final 9 declared dead

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - nine victims of the devastating earthquake of the New Zealand finals have been declared dead Monday, ending a dying waiting for the families of those whose remains have never been identified in the wreckage.

Same DNA tests proved to be unable to identify nine 181 killed victims in parts of the city of Christchurch have been ruined in the February 22 quake, so that the Government has created a special coroner's inquest to consider other evidence.

Chief Coroner Neil MacLean made its official conclusion of the death of nine missing persons who have not been located and including mobile phones, bank accounts and passports have not been used. He concluded that they died of traumatic injuries following an earthquake.

MacLean said that families deserve closure. The nine were six women and three men. Four were Chinese and a Philippine. Others were born in the Peru and Russia.

Witnesses reported having seen all the nine in the building of Canterbury television before the earthquake, but no one had seen any of them since. A total of 115 lives were lost in the CTV building, which totally has collapsed and burned.

The earthquake of magnitude 6.3 is one of the worst disasters in the New Zealand. Some 10,000 houses and commercial buildings in downtown close to 1000 will have to be demolished and parts of suburban Christchurch probably be abandoned completely.

The earthquake is most expensive natural disaster in New Zealand, costs of $ 15 billion.

Police previously identified 172 victims and said the investigation that they had names for another nine people but all rest of them recovered was too incomplete to identify legally.

Fingerprints, dental remains, pathological examinations and analysis of DNA were among the methods to identify the nine, said Detective Inspector Paul Kench.

"To say that it is a special type of survey is an understatement," MacLean said at the hearing.

The six women MacLean held dead were: Jinyan Leng, 30, Xiujuan Xu, 47, Didi Zhang, 23 and Xiaoli Zhou, 26, China. Rhea Mae Sumalpong, 25, of the Philippines; and Elsa Torres of Frood, 53, a resident of New Zealand born in the Peru.

The men were: Matthew Lyle Beaumont, 31-Shawn Lucas, 40, of Christchurch. and Valeri Volnov, 41, a resident of New Zealand born in Russia.