Former Express & Star journalist Tracy Money-Clarke, who emigrated to New Zealand from Staffordshire, today described the devastation left behind.

Tracy Money-Clarke

The mother-of-two, who left Burntwood behind for North Shore, Auckland, six years ago, said: “Everyone here is in a state of shock as they watch the horror unfold. The news clips show dazed and bloodied people walking from collapsed office buildings, they know they are the lucky ones.

“Search-and-rescue workers continue to scour through tons of rubble trying desperately to find signs of life.”

Tracy’s best friend, a teacher at Friary Secondary School, Lichfield, who emigrated from Burntwood at around the same time, has felt the full force of the tragedy in Christchurch and says she is lucky to be alive after the quake ripped through the city, leaving it “like a war zone”.

Lisa Jackson, her husband Andrew and their four children Aaron, Ellie, Freya and Olivia, are without power and drinking water but thankfully safe in their own home.

But they say many others have been forced to find shelter elsewhere as their houses have been destroyed. Flights are expected to resume at 8am tomorrow, New Zealand time, and Tracy predicts an exodus of people from Auckland trying to catch the hour-long flight to check on their families, and Christchurch residents heading to the North Island to escape the aftershocks.

“When Lisa and her children arrived on my doorstep in Auckland in September last year to take a break from the unsettling after-effects of the first earthquake to hit Christchurch, little did they know just a few months later their lives, and thousands of others, would again be turned upside down,” said Tracy.