The quake-damaged Reading Cinema car park in central Wellington is at ``imminent risk of collapse'' and firefighters are evacuating the building.
The news comes just after the Government launched an investigation into the failure of relatively new buildings - including Statistics House - following Monday's quake.
Announcing the investigation on Thursday, Building and Housing Minister Nick Smith said the magnitude 7.8 tremor had tested the seismic strength of many of Wellington's multi-storey buildings.
"This investigation will focus on Statistics House to understand its performance and where there may be wider lessons for improved design," he said.
At a press conference at Parliament, Dr Smith said Wellington buildings performed well overall during the quakes.
The worst-damaged building, at 61 Molesworth St, was known to be earthquake-prone, he said.
"The reason I'm asking officials to look at the Stats Building is because it's a relatively new design building, and there has been a collapse of the floor in one corner."
The five-storey building on Wellington's waterfront was built in 2005.
Dr Smith said it was on reclaimed land, which amplified the level of shaking during earthquakes. Monday's quake was also unusual because of its length. The shaking lasted for 90 seconds, compared to 12 seconds for the devastating Christchurch quake in 2011.
"That means the building has to take a lot more to-ing and fro-ing, and that may be one of the design issues that's investigated."
The owners of the building, Centre Point and the Wellington City Council, welcomed the investigation, Dr Smith said.
The minister also emphasised that the type of earthquake which struck on Monday was particularly strong for properties between five and 10 storeys.
Another type of earthquake could severely impact one or two-storey properties, he said.
"I am concerned about the commentary of some people, for instance on Cuba St that had one or two-storey earthquake prone buildings, who have now got the view that their building is quite safe because they did not suffer significant damage from Monday."
Council inspectors have identified 60 buildings with signs of structural damage in Wellington, though some of them were already known to be earthquake-prone.
More buildings in central Wellington were cordoned off on Thursday due to falling debris.
The Terrace, 41-55, is out of bounds as structural engineers and contractors work to make it safe.
The building that houses Archives New Zealand on Mulgrave St has also been evacuated as a "precautionary measure", the Department of Internal Affairs said in a Facebook post.Wellington council inspectors have so far found 60 buildings of concern with signs of structural damage, and 28 at risk of part of the building falling down.
One office building with structural damage in Pipitea St will have to be deconstructed, while engineers are still assessing possible damage to an apartment block and a downtown office tower.
The Defence Force's headquarters in Aitken St, built in 2007, and Statistics New Zealand's purpose-designed building on the waterfront, built in 2005, both suffered significant structural damage.
Bank of New Zealand expects it will be months as opposed to weeks before it reopens its damaged Wellington office owned by CentrePort, which has hired Fletcher Building for the remediation job.
The lender's Harbour Quays building adjacent to Wellington's port housed the bulk of BNZ's call-centre operations, and the bank has previously warned customers could face delays because of that.
Statistics House has suffered a potentially fatal floor collapse.
Auckland University structural engineering Prof Jason Ingham said the floor collapse never should have happened.
"If it had been a daytime event on Monday morning then it would have been quite plausible to expect that people would have been killed.''
Prof Ingham said the worst-hit buildings in Wellington were on reclaimed waterfront land.
"There's a small pocket of buildings that have taken a very large amount of damage, so the suggestion is there was some very extreme excitation at that location.''
Despite that, Prof Ingham said he would not expect modern buildings to exhibit such significant damage.
Engineers would now study accelerometer data to see what stresses the buildings were put under.
Canterbury University structural engineering professor Stefano Pampanin said buildings were designed to suffer some damage to non-structural elements, such as the facade and the windows. But damage to a structural element like a floor was generally not expected.
Mr Key said officials did not know how many government departments would need to be relocated due to quake damage. A full review of government buildings was under way.
"One of the interesting things is of course that Defence House is a very new building, so some questions obviously need to be asked.''
The Defence Force said the full extent of the damage would not be known for several days.
Government Property Group director David White said all buildings occupied by government agencies - more than 100 - were being assessed by engineers.
Wellington Mayor Justin Lester yesterday said the city's most badly damaged building, the tower at 61 Molesworth St, would need to be deconstructed.
An exclusion zone was yesterday widened to include Pipitea House, built in 2011, because of concerns with its facade in high winds.
The building houses the Government Communications Security Bureau and the Security Intelligence Service.
A retirement village in Khandallah had also been partly evacuated, and residents of 40 apartments rehoused elsewhere in the region.
Ryman Healthcare said the Figaro building at the Malvina Major Retirement Village had been evacuated as a precaution.
The Tennyson Apartments in Te Aro were also evacuated because of a "severe crack''.
Other buildings off-limits to occupants and the public, include:
• Royal Thai Embassy
• New Zealand Rugby Union headquarters building and the tenancies within, including NZ Post and Audit New Zealand
• Red Cross offices
• Wellington Cathedral of St Paul
• Several private houses accessed off Collina Tce.
