Using cameras, sniffer dogs and pausing silently at times to listen for signs of life, the orange-clad specialists pushed on with their grim task, despite local warnings that they were now unlikely to find survivors.

The recovery of 23 bodies on Thursday brought the toll from the six-storey building alone to 47, local police said -- but they also warned that up to 120 may have been inside when it was toppled by Tuesday's quake.

"We are racing against the clock," said Yoshihiro Katada, the deputy chief of the 67-strong rescue team that flew to Christchurch from Japan, itself on the "Pacific Ring of Fire" and one of the most quake-prone countries on earth.

"We'll not give up and we'll do our best in the search and rescue operations as long as there is the possibility of finding survivors," he added, speaking to a Japanese television crew in broadcast comments.

Altogether nearly 100 people have died and 226 are listed as missing in the wreckage in New Zealand's second-biggest city.

The rescue operation at the CTV building was becoming more desperate as the survival chances for people trapped under rubble diminish sharply after the first 72 hours, as injuries, lack of water and the cold take their toll.

"We need to move heavy concrete rubble," said Katada, speaking before the dusty mountain of crushed concrete and mangled debris that was once a substantial building, also housing a local television station.

"There is smoke rising up, and we hope it is not spreading to people trapped underneath," said Katada, whose team was working together with Australian search and rescue specialists.

Dave Cliff, the Canterbury police district commander, told reporters Thursday there is "no sign of survival" at the CTV building.

Katada, when asked to comment on local authorities' view that chances of survival were almost zero now, said: "We are here as a rescue team. Please understand that we are operating on the belief that there is hope."

Rescuers have been inspired by several survivors found early on, including 19-year-old Kento Okuda, a Japanese student on his first trip abroad, who was in the school's fourth-floor cafeteria when the 6.3-magnitude quake struck.

Okuda, who had his right leg amputated to free him, showed remarkable bravery when he later flashed the victory sign from his hospital bed to cameras and said he accepted losing his leg because "all I ask for is to live".

The school, King's Education College, listed 48 enrolled international students and staff as missing in an online posting Thursday.

Japan's foreign ministry said at least 26 citizens who had, or probably had, attended the school were missing -- 10 from the Toyama College of Foreign Languages, 12 from two study tour agencies and four independent students.

China state television said that 20 Chinese students who attended the school were missing, and that some had not responded to frantic calls or text messages sent by their relatives.

"With respect to the reports of trapped Chinese students there, we are very concerned and our embassy in New Zealand is quickly checking the situation," foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu told reporters.

"We have urged the New Zealand side to rescue the Chinese students there," Ma said, without giving a figure for the number missing.

South Korea has said that two of its nationals, a brother and sister aged in their 20s, are unaccounted for.

In Japan, people have followed the all-too-familiar tectonic calamity in New Zealand closely on television, while the government has acted swiftly to help its own nationals and others who may be in need.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan, a day after dispatching the rescue team, spoke by telephone with New Zealand Prime Minister John Key Thursday, vowing to give full support to the disaster-hit nation.

More than 20 Japanese relatives of missing or rescued students were due to fly to New Zealand.

"I'm so worried, I just want to do something," a man with a missing female relative told broadcaster NHK. "We have to bring her a change of clothing. We want to take a look at the site and just get near it."

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