CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand - It will take at least 10 years to rebuild Christchurch, officials said on Thursday, warning it would be months before they could even begin to reopen the quake-hit New Zealand city.

The timeline, outlining the scale of damage to the country's second largest city, came as the death toll from last week's devastating quake rose to 161, with expectations it will rise to more than 240.

Civil defense head John Hamilton said that officials now believed there were no more survivors beneath the rubbles across the city.

The last person found alive was pulled from a pancaked office block on Wednesday last week, a day after the 6.3 magnitude quake.

New Zealand's acting Economic Development Minister David Carter said it would take "more than 10 years" to rebuild Christchurch, the main gateway to the country's South Island.

He said work would get under way quickly, but "it's a big project".

Rescue comes to halt

New Zealand authorities have given up hope of finding any more survivors from last week's devastating earthquake and will now look to recover the remaining victims, officials said on Thursday.

Hamilton said there had been no live rescues since last week and the grim reality was that no more people would be found alive.

"As time has gone on the chances of finding others alive has diminished. Sadly there comes a point where the response effort has to shift from rescue to the recovery of bodies, and regrettably we have reached that point," Hamilton said.

Seventy people were pulled out alive from levelled buildings in the city's central business district, when the quake struck at 12:51 pm local time last Tuesday, at a time when the city center was full of lunching office workers and shoppers.

The victims are believed to have come from more than 20 countries, with many being foreign students - including Japanese and Chinese - at an English language school in a building where the six floors collapsed on top of each other. The local mayor said the news made it a "terrible" day for Christchurch.

AFP-Reuters