By Ali Ikram
Today it has been revealed CTV bosses were talking about moving premises just hours before the building was felled, trapping what is thought to be 15 staff members inside.
Also one of the station's hosts said the crew had wondered if the place was safe before it came down.
When he heard the six storey building that once was his workplace had been flattened, cameraman Richard Lord, who had only recently left CTV, went there searching for his friends and former workmates.
"I saw firsthand how hard their job was in the rain and the dark and the cold seeing them seeing the effort they were putting in for people that I knew was incredible," he says.
Today, it was bodies that were being carried out.
"I can only imagine for those affected families can feel helpless at home," Mr Lord says.
But Facebook postings reveal despite what authorities are saying, they refuse to give up hope.
Andrew Bishop's mum was one of the 15 thought to be trapped that she hoped he was alive and would return to give his colleagues grief with the blooper reels he was famous for; adding he was a “stubborn bugger” and won't give up without a fight.
"It's awful but it's happened we can't look back"
One of those inside was the stations owner Murray Wood.
"We're only 50 percent owners and Murray Wood was the other 50; ironically we were talking about the future of CTV and where we could be housed because on our current model we needed to be housed somewhere else – and it was too late," says CTV chairman Nick Smith.
Today, CTV presenter Mike Yardley spoke to Campbell Live about concerns he and fellow staff members about the structural integrity of the building post last September’s earthquake.
The station's chairman has vowed to keep going as a lasting memorial.
3 News