Tiny Baxtor laid to rest as New Zealand starts to bury its dead

Dozens of family and friends gathered at a small chapel in the stricken city of Christchurch for Baxtor Gowland, who was sleeping at home when he was struck by masonry shaken loose by the magnitude 6.3 quake last Tuesday.

He died in a hospital, the family said.

Inside the chapel, a slideshow of the smiling infant’s photographs flashed on a screen, as Sarah McLachlan’s song Angel echoed throughout the room.

The child’s great-uncle, Peter Croft, his voice shaking with emotion, said: “We have all been thankful for the support and good wishes expressed from New Zealand and around the world.

“However, we would like to think that today is for family and friends so that we can farewell Baxtor with peace and dignity.”

After the ceremony, the tiny white coffin topped by a wreath of white flowers and draped with a light-blue blanket was carried away for burial by one man dressed in black, who placed it on to the back seat of a sedan. Some mourners wept and clung to each other, while others stood and watched in silence.

Officials have named just eight victims of last week’s disaster –Baxtor and another infant among them.

Superintendent David Cliff said yesterday that the death toll had reached 148, based on the number of bodies recovered from the rubble.

Officials say the task of identifying the dead was slow and difficult, and that unidentified bodies were included on a list of people considered missing, which currently numbered around 200.

Mr Cliff said there were “grave fears” for about 50 of those counted as missing, indicating that the final death toll could be about 200.

Prime Minister John Key announced the first package of financial measures aimed to help the stricken city get back on its feet – subsidies for employers worth £56m to help pay salaries for some 50,000 people unable to go to work because of damage from the quake.

“It is designed to immediately put money into people’s pockets and give them some confidence,” he said at a news conference, adding that further measures still to come were likely to cost hundreds of millions of New Zealand dollars. He did not elaborate.

Outlining the measures after a Cabinet meeting in the capital, Wellington, Mr Key also said the expected economic cost of the earthquake saying “is in the order” of 20 billion dollars (£9.3bn). Analysts had earlier put the cost at up to 12bn (£5.6bn).

The multinational team of more than 600 rescuers scrabbling through wrecked buildings in the decimated central area of the city last pulled a survivor from the ruins on Wednesday afternoon, making it six days without finding anyone alive.

Police have said up to 120 people may have been killed in the Christchurch television building, where dozens of foreign students, mostly Japanese and Chinese, from an international language school, were believed trapped.

And up to 22 people may be buried in rubble at Christchurch Cathedral, most of them believed to be tourists climbing the bell tower for its panoramic views.

Before the Cabinet meeting, Mr Key said long-term measures being considered include an extra levy on all householders under New Zealand’s compulsory quake insurance system to raise the estimated four billion dollars (£1.9bn) needed to cover an insurance shortfall.