The fate of the city’s Chabad house remains unclear, however.
Saturday's tremor, registering 7.1 on the Richter scale, ripped through the city in the south island at around 4.30 a.m., causing an estimated $1.4 billion in property damage. There were no fatalities.
Rabbi Mendel Goldstein, the American-born director of Chabad of New Zealand, told JTA that the earthquake – the country’s worst since 1931 – razed part of the roof of his dining room while his wife and three children were sleeping."
