"According to reports from the Indonesian Embassy in Wellington, up till now, no Indonesian is known to have become a victim in the quake," foreign affairs ministry spokesman Michael Tene said here Friday.
However, he admitted that Indonesian embassy`s staff in Wellington were still scouring Christchurch city to find any Indonesian who might have become a victim in he deadly quake.
Michael added the foreign affairs ministry several days ago had also sent officers to Wellington to help the Indonesian Embassy staff in tracking down ll Indonesians living Christchurch and ascertain their conditions.
About a report stating that there were 17 Indonesians in Christchurch who could not be contacted after the quake, Michael said the Indonesian Embassy in Wellington had meanwhile succeeded in locating the 17 Indonesians.
Earlier, Xinhua reported the confirmed death toll from the magnitude 6.3 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, had risen to 76 on Thursday, but Police Minister Judith Collins expected the number to increase further.
Prime Minister John Key said the names of some of those killed in the disaster would be released on Thursday.
Key said the early indications were that there may be fatalities from a number of countries.
Police Superintendent Dave Cliff said 238 people were still missing in Christchurch, but many could simply have left town without telling anyone.
Police said the people trapped in the collapsed Canterbury TV building had no hope of survival. More than 120 are believed to be trapped in the building, including some international students.
The Tuesday earthquake had also caused a 30 million tonne block of ice to shear off a New Zealand glacier just minutes after the violent earthquake devastated the city of Christchurch.
The huge iceberg crashed into a lake shortly after the 6.3 magnitude tremor rocked the South Island on Tuesday and created waves up to three meters high for 30 minutes which rocked two sightseeing boats on the lake at the time.
The enormous iceberg -- estimated to weigh 30 to 40 million tonnes -- began ripping off the Tasman Glacier at Aoraki Mount Cook National Park accompanied by a loud noise which sounded like a rifle shot, a local tourism official said.
Aoraki Mount Cook Alpine Village tourism manager Denis Callesen said locals had been expecting a major iceberg to drop from the glacier for the past month, but the "curve ball" was that the event was caused by an earthquake.
"The earthquake that we felt here was a swaying motion for about a minute, then it stopped and then it swayed for about another minute," he told AFP.
"Within about a minute of that happening, the staff at the lake heard from five kilometers away (from the glacier) a sound that sounded like a rifle shot and then over the next two minutes all the events started to unfold.
"I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the earthquake was the trigger."
The Department of Conservation confirmed that a "large chunk" of the glacier fell into the lake but was unable to say if this was caused by the earthquake, which was only felt lightly around Mt Cook some 150 kilometers (93 miles) from the epicentre.
(A051/A051/O001/S026)
Editor: Suryanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
