WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Rescuers officially gave up hope of finding more survivors of New Zealand's devastating earthquake, saying today that no one trapped in rubble when the disaster struck nine days earlier could still be alive.

The news was a blow to the families of around 200 people listed as missing, many of whom clung to faltering hope for good news despite more than a week of silence from beneath the piles of debris that still litter the city of Christchurch.

“We now face the reality that there is no chance that anyone could have survived this long,” Civil Defense Emergency Management national controller John Hamilton told a news conference today.

BREGA, Libya — Mutinous army units in pickup trucks armed with machine-guns and rocket launchers deployed around the strategic oil installation at Brega today, a day after the opposition foiled an attempt by loyalists of Moammar Gadhafi to retake the port in rebel-held east Libya.Government warplanes launched a new airstrike on the town in the morning, according to witnesses. It was not clear what they targeted, but it was likely an airstrip that belongs to the huge oil complex on the Mediterranean coast. There were no reports of casualties.“We are in a position to control the area and we are deploying our forces,” a rebel army officer in Brega told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.