'Buildings swung like pendulum'

Naomi Van Holbutt-Kirk, a Briton, said massive earthquake struck when she and other parents were about to collect their children from school.

“I could actually see my seven-year-old daughter crouched under a desk with her classmates... the building was swinging like a giant pendulum and I was just waiting for the sound of a crash from the adjacent building where my five-year-old son was still in his classroom,” she said. “It did not collapse and the quake eventually stopped,” she said.

Naomi said she was waiting on the street when the next quake came, “which was very frightening and can only be likened to the feeling of riding a wave on the pavement”.

“Frightened mothers were screaming and nobody knew where the safest place to be was and everyone was looking up at the shaking buildings. Minutes later we were allowed to collect our children.”