Rescuers in Christchurch have been searching for any signs of life after the devastating earthquake that rocked the city.
Lynn works in the emergency department at Christchurch General Hospital and was on duty when the quake first hit the city. In a text message to her in-laws, she had described some of the trauma injuries as “horrendous.”
Mr Quinlan said, “She said it has been really bad and a lot of the patients are being moved out to hospitals across the country.”
Hamish regularly works with rope rescue teams and has been using his skills to assist with the search for trapped survivors. He told his father that mud and silt are still shifting in places, making the operation difficult and dangerous.
“We have been trying to get as much information as possible, Mr Quinlan said. “But we have really just been restricted to text messages and brief phone calls.
“The main thing, for us, is that they are alive and well. We have been in touch with our friends who live out there and they are all saying the place is in absolute ruins.”
Sandra Henderson and her husband David were woken during the early hours of Tuesday by a call from their son David, who told them he was fine but was “running up the hill” to check his sons were safe at school.
David (46) and his wife Sheena (45) emigrated from Perth to New Zealand with their twin boys Conor and Logan, now aged nine, last June.
The family decided to move to the other side of the world as David could not find work as an architect in Scotland and wanted “better prospects” for their children.
His parents visited the new settlers in New Zealand over Christmas and experienced a number of tremors at their son’s rented family home in Clifton, which is in the Sumner suburb.
However, nothing could prepare Sandra for the call she took as the earthquake unfolded.
“I’m still shaken and quite traumatised by the whole experience,” Sandra told The Courier, her voice shaking with emotion.
“My husband and I were fast asleep and oblivious to the earthquake going on at the other side of the world, but then David phoned and told us he was okay and that he was running up the hill to get the children from school. He said he’d phone me back.
“We switched on the TV and saw the breaking news. I felt so helpless and still do.Total destructionSandra said their son kept them updated with mobile phone calls. Everyone was safe and well but by the time the family got back to their house, it had been totally destroyed. The windows were all smashed and the furniture had been wrecked.
There was now no water, sewerage or electricity and many neighbours were homeless. Her son had been helping a neighbour who broke a leg.
“They slept last night in a camper van but all the residents in the area have now been advised by police that they should move away,” Sandra added. “The place is called Clifton for good reason. Many of the houses are built on the edge of a cliff, and there are fears that they are all going to slip down the hillside.
“Many houses have been left in a precarious state. My son says it’s been wonderful, though, how everyone has been rallying round to help each other.
“I think they are going to be billeted to the other side of Christchurch and are going to be staying with work colleagues.”
Sandra said she had been “shaken up badly” by the experience and was terribly worried about her grandsons’ welfare. However, she took comfort from the news they were safe.
“I can’t explain. I feel totally traumatised. It’s been absolutely horrific,” she added. “But at least they are okay. Others have not been so lucky and our hearts go out to their families.”
New Zealand prime minister John Key declared it a national disaster as hundreds of troops, police and emergency workers raced against time and aftershocks that threatened to collapse more buildings.
More than 100 people are thought to still be missing. Officials on Wednesday said that over 70 bodies had been recovered so far but more are known to still be under the rubble.
Rescue teams picked gingerly through the ruins, poking heat-seeking cameras into gaps between bricks and sending sniffer dogs over concrete slabs.
The quake hit Christchurch at lunchtime on Tuesday at a time when streets were packed and offices were occupied.
Amid all the tragic tales emerging from the city, two Tayside families were relieved to hear from relatives caught up in the catastrophe in the suburb of Sumner.
An Angus father has told how his son cheated death by seconds after a giant boulder crashed through his house. A Perth woman described how she felt “helpless and traumatised” after taking a mobile phone call from her son as his family’s cliff top home was being destroyed by the earthquake.
Paddy Quinlan (60), chairman of Arbroath British Legion, told The Courier how his 31-year-old son Fergus had been in the bedroom of his home in Sumner just moments before a “huge rock” broke through the roof, destroying much of the building.
The boat captain had only stepped into the shower when the devastating quake hit, sending him tumbling to the floor with a suspected broken arm.
Mr Quinlan said communication had mostly been limited to text messages and emails since the disaster struck, but added his son had described the boulder as large enough to fill the bedroom from floor to ceiling.Near epicentre”Fergus lives in Sumner, which is a suburb south-east of Christchurch and is very near the epicentre,” Mr Quinlan said. “It is a beautiful little village surrounded by high cliff tops and steep slopes and a lot of the houses are built on stilts.
“Their house survived the last earthquake in September with no problem at all, but they haven’t been so lucky this time. He now has his very own climbing wall on his bed and if he had been there 20 seconds earlier he would have been in serious trouble.”
Not only has Fergus now survived two earthquakes, he was also in the Cayman Islands when Hurricane Ivan struck in 2004.
Mr Quinlan and his wife Catriona woke up to television coverage of the Christchurch quake and within the hour had received some very brief mobile phone text messages from Fergus, his wife Lynn and his younger son Hamish, who also lives in Sumner.
The Arbroath couple were only put at ease after a brief phone conversation with their eldest son. “He was shaken but he said he still had a smile on his face and had been running around helping other people,” Mr Quinlan said.
“He said the whole place had been devastated and people were travelling around in groups because there are still aftershocks happening. We were worried he wasn’t telling us just how close it was and he was still buzzing a bit when we talked to him.”
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Madras Street Looking North Towards Latimer Square from Layton Duncan on Vimeo.