the quake took down buildings, destroyed homes and tore up streets. we've got the latest pictures. good evening, i'm terry moran. we'll begin with a dramatic showdown with a dictator and a population demanding freedom. the situation is red hot in the libyan city of benghazi where residents spent the day terrorized by bands of roving thugs spraying machine gunfire and killing hundreds according to witnesses. the showdown comes as libyan leader moammar gadhafi seeks an unprecedented -- puts down an n unprecedented uprising. >> reporter: moammar gadhafi who led by crushing the opposition could himself be crushed by a

popular uprising. tonight in a country where people have lived in fear for so long, suddenly they are taking to the streets, all day they have been brazenly demanding that gadhafi get out. but gadhafi is lashing back with force and brutality on a scale not yet seen in the revolutions that have been sweeping across the arab world. >> oh, my god. they are -- they are firing at the civilians here. they are crazy. they are going crazy here. >> reporter: with borders closed and telephone and internet jammed it's impossible to get an accurate picture but there are reports of massacres by the military. >> meme are being killed by large caliber bullets, heavy, you know, heavy machine guns. they've reported aircrafts, helicopters. they've been using anti-aircraft artillery at people. >> reporter: a conservative tally puts the death toll at

about 300. a catastrophe fueled not by the libyan military but reported by paid mercenaries hired from chad and zimbabwe. >> you can hear them in their land cruisers with their guns. they don't care who they hit. they're just basically looking for a target. >> reporter: last night gadhafi's son tried to blame the uprising on islamic radicals and warned there could be civil war. we will fight to the last man, woman and bullet. he said. tonight here in tunis, anxious families waited as flight after flight from libya was canceled. finally one flight did land. those who got off brought with them tales of terror. "from 3:00 to 6:00 in the morning," he says "the shooting did not stop. i could not sleep."

gadhafi made an ever so brief appearance on state tv tonight making it clear he's not planning to go anywhere. i'm very relaxed, he said and with characteristic cockeyness he laughed off reports he's in venezuela. i'm in tripoli, not in venezuela. today two libyan air force pilots landed in malta and asked for asylum after refusing a command to bomb protesters. at the same time, several libyan tribal leaders are siding with the opposition and so are several senior libyan diplomats abroad. it's hard to imagine libya without moammar gadhafi after almost 42 years he is the longest serving leader in africa and in the arab world. gadhafi seized control of the country in a coup in 1969. he was just 27 years old. he became an advocate of arab unity. gadhafi wanted to be seen as an arab statesman but the word saw him instead as a laughably

eccentric leader. >> hello the. i'm here today to apologize for my meech on wednesday. it was just so long and so rambly and it didn't make any sense. >> reporter: in those u.s. diplomatic cables recently released by wikileaks gadhafi is described as a mercurial and eccentric figure who suffers from severe phobias, enjoys floriamenco dancing and horse racing. barbara walters interviewed him in 1989. >> can i ask you something very directly which may seem rude. in our country we read that you are unstable. we read that you are mad. you know those things have been printed. why do you think this is? other leaders are disliked but they're not as controversial as you are. >> translator: it is not because of me that i am gadhafi. it is because of certain circumstances surrounding the issue. >> does it make you angry?

>> translator: of course it irritates me. >> reporter: he has been a ruthless dictator to sponsored terrorists. he funded black september, the group responsible for the massacre of the israeli team at the munich olympics in 1972 and in 1986 his agents attacked a berlin disco frequented by american soldiers. >> this monstrous brutality is but the latest act in colonel gadhafi's terror. >> reporter: president reagan order an air strike on his compound killing the leader's 15-month-old daughter. two years later, gadhafi retaliated by taking down pan am 103 over lockerbie, scotland, skilling 270 people including 179 americans. for years gadhafi refused to take responsibility for the bombing but that changed in 2003 when he acknowledged his role and tried to make amends. george stephanopoulos talked to him that year. >> do you think there will be an

alliance between the united states and libya in your lifetime? >> translator: russia and america, they were enemies. now they're friends. we hope that one day we'll be friends also. >> reporter: today it is clear that will never happen. gadhafi has demonstrated yet again that he is an outlier intent on only one thing, maintaining power. tonight it's not clear that he can do that for much longer. i'm jeffrey kofman for "nightline" in tunis. >> the freedom fighters in libya, this is a story we'll continue to watch closely thanks to jeffrey kofman for that. when we come back we'll turn to american politics and the man who may be the front-runner of the republican presidential nomination, if only he were running. an ibm computer system named watson won jeopardy. but the real winner? human kind.

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after the smoke cleared following the iowa caucuses for the nomination in 2008 a lot of people were surprised that the runaway winner, former arkansas governor, mike huckabee, who made a particularly strong showing among evangelical voters and women. he didn't get the nomination but will 2012 be a different story? i joined him for a duck hunt in our interview series "the contenders." if you want to get to know a guy -- >> all right, let's go get some ducks. >> beware, ducks. >> reporter: -- spend a few hours with him on the prairie going duck hunting. mike huckabee, former arkansas governor, presidential candidate, winner of the iowa

caucuses in 2008, one of the front-runners in 2012 took us out a while back. a passion for him, always has been and as he explained it's a way to do business out here. >> i used to -- when i was in the office, i would hunt 40 days a year. just in duck season because it was something i could go do early in the morning and be back in the office by 9:30. you want to meet? great, meet me at 4:30. we'll go duck hunting, talk on the way and talk on the way back and have a great time in between. >> reporter: this will be my first time. so huckabee explains the goal here. kill ducks. >> i think the main thing is that when the ducks are coming in, you have to be careful but they are very able to see faces and that spooks them. so movement to a minimum and conceal -- that's why we all wear cam mow and try to blend in. >> that is slick. >> reporter: translation, don't ruin the hunt, rookie.

out in the blind settling in for the slaughter. >> there's a difference between an environmentalist and conversati conversationalist. i think you recognize the environment is for our use, our pleasure. >> reporter: the pleasure here is to get us some ducks and we talk and we learn something about mike huckabee. he's not legally an arkansan anymore. is arkansas still home then. >> technically florida is where my residence is, but we, of course, keep a house here and will. >> it started here in iowa. thank you. >> reporter: life has changed a lot for mike huckabee since he came out of nowhere, it seemed to win the iowa caucuses in 2008 on the strength of an easy-going personality and grassroots supports from evangelical christian conservatives. these days huckabee is making millions of dollars for the first time in his life just by being mike huckabee. >> what are the keys to a lasting and successful marriage? >> reporter: he has a gig on fox news, a radio show and a new

book "a simple government" that looks an awful lot like a campaign book. but the big question with huckabee right now is, will he run again? so you'll run as a floridian? >> well, that's the big question. will i run? so don't know. i'm not jumping into that hole just yet. nice try. >> reporter: a couple of days ago in the comfort of a set here in new york, we pressed him on it. let's make some news. are you going to run for president? >> that would make some news, wouldn't it. >> reporter: it sure would. >> the honest answer i tell everybody, i'm not being coy bit, i haven't made a decision whether i will or won't. >> reporter: for real? >> no, i really haven't. am i still considering it? absolutely. is it possible that i will? yes. is it possible that i'll look at the options and decide, no, it's really not a good time, that i

don't have the financial or organizational backing to pull it off and go to the finish line? that's possible, as well. >> reporter: that does not sound like a guy who's got the fire in the belly for another run because if you run, you run to win. and this is something you don't hear much from politicians. do you think you could go all the way? >> that's what i'm having to assess. and the honest answer is i'm not sure. >> reporter: there are obstacles to a successful huckabee candidacy and he knows it. he hates raising money. isn't very good at it and he senses and this is heresy among republicans that president obama is no pushover. >> i do think that the idea that running against barack obama is going to be really easy for the republican nominee, that's utter nonsense. >> reporter: why? >> because he's going to have a billion dollars to start with and no primary opponent. and running against that mountain of money and a guy who is the incumbent president, i don't care who it is, the power of incumbency is significant. >> reporter: there's another

reason this might not be mike huckabee's year, the tea party means it's a very different republican party this time around. >> what i'm going to find out is what are the objections that i have to overcome? you know, in the republican primary it's a demolition derby. it's not just a matter of am i making some people happy but how intensely am i making some people within that primary unhappy? >> reporter: huckabee has a real independence group and approved taxes as governor, opposed some crackdowns on illegal immigrants and granted clemency to a lot of convicted criminals. i have heard you described as a bleeding heart christian conservative and i wonder if that fits with the current republican party. >> to be called a bleeding heart conservative is better than having a heart that doesn't bleed at all because then you're dead. >> reporter: back out in the blind, it was shooting time so we waited. and waited. >> it's been very quiet out here this morning.

hear the other birds. >> reporter: yeah. >> everybody is awake but the ducks. we got to get the ducks out. go on, ducks. >> reporter: we had decoys covering the water. got the duck calls going but no ducks. finally -- [ gunshots ] >> he's going down. >> reporter: total take for the morning, three ducks. >> joe, what do you recommend? >> reporter: but it was a good time and that's a question mike huckabee is asking himself now. does he want to give up all the good times in his life right now for another run at the white house? >> we'll find out thanks to governor huckabee for the chat. he says he'll decide by summer. up next, breaking news tonight. an unknown number of residents are trapped in new zealand, christchurch with rescuers fighting to reach them after a fatal earthquake.

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now we got some breaking news tonight from new zealand where a violent earthquake has wreaked terrible damage on the city of christchurch killing an unknown number of residents and trapping perhaps many more. the quake struck even as the town was rebuilding from an even larger but nonfatal earthquake last september and a rescue effort is now under way there. it hit shortly after 1:00 p.m. local time. a violent 6.3 magnitude earthquake slamming the southern

new zealand city of christchurch on tuesday. dozens were feared dead an an known number of others were trapped in the rubble. in the aftermath a city of 400,000, new zealand's second largest, had the feeling of a combat zone. power was out. roads were destroyed. buildings were reduced to ruins. dazed residents wandered through the destruction, some bleeding from the head. dramatic scenes of rescue played out. a fire crew plucked a woman from the top of a destroyed office building where up to 200 employees were believed to be working. an unknown number of them were still trapped inside. >> under concrete on the fourth floor. >> reporter: victims were removed on stretchers. survivors broke into tears. rescue workers carried ladders to the scene but the damage appeared extensive with heavy equipment required to move massive concrete slabs. witnesses said the quake had knocked the spire off the landmark christchurch cathedral.

the u.s. geological survey said it was centered three miles from the city and 5.6 aftershock hit afterwards seven miles from the city. this man was injured by a falling table in his restaurant. even as he recovered another aftershock. the christchurch airport was reported closed and the hospital was evacuated after the quake. the town has been hit by hundreds of aftershocks since the 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck september 4th last year in which many were injured but no one died. and christchurch mayor bob parker has declared a state of emergency, ordered people to evacuate the city center. be sure to watch "good morning america" tomorrow for more on this story. finally tonight, our "closing argument," the libya uprising is the topic. the question of what the united states should can or do to influence the outcome. we've heard from many of you on

facebook and twitter and invite the rest of you to debate the rest of it. from all of us at abc news, good night, america. >> dicky: tonight on "jimmy kimmel live." >> brett favre couldn't congratulate his teammates but did text a photo of how excited it was. >> what's that? >> wow! >> it's called -- [ speaking a foreign language ] >> dicky: music from pitbul that tastes good is torturous. your father is suffering. ♪ [ male announcer ] honey nut cheerios cereal tastes great and can help lower cholesterol. bee happy. bee healthy.