Bernard Hickey details the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am in association with Bank of New Zealand, including news of New Zealand's biggest natural disaster.
Yesterday's 6.3 magnitude earthquake in Christchurch has devastated the city and killed dozens. Many more are trapped and fighting for their lives.
The scale of the disaster is many, many times larger than the September 4 earthquake that struck Christchurch.
The focus now is on rescue and recovery of the living. See more detail here.
NZHerald reported that the government will consider imposing a national state of emergency at a cabinet meeting at 9.30 am this morning. Prime Minister John Key is due to speak at 11am.
However, financial markets have reacted and some are beginning to consider the economic impact of the earthquake. It is far too early for any sort of accurate assessment, but it will obviously be many, many times larger than the NZ$7 billion estimated for the September 4 quake.
The New Zealand dollar fell under 75 USc this morning and wholesale interest rates fell between 5 and 20 basis points as financial markets priced in the prospect of no rate hike for the rest of 2011.
Some are even considering the possibility the Reserve Bank of New Zealand may make an emergency cut in the Official Cash Rate.
BNZ's economists have moved their forecast for the next OCR hike out to January, while ASB has changed its forecast to December.
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