A YORK ex-pat living in New Zealand has told how his brother narrowly survived the devastating Christchurch earthquake, and has spoken of his own work to help rebuild the city.

Julian Tyerman, 43, a glazier, was not in Christchurch at the time of the quake but said his brother escaped alive from the collapsing language school in which he worked. Sadly, 23 of his pupils died.

“The aftershocks happen all the time,” Julian said.

“The place has already been hammered and every time they hit, they weaken lots more buildings.

“They are registering from about 3 to 5.3 on the Richter scale. If a 5.3 hit York there would be no Bar Walls, no Clifford’s Tower and no Minster.

“We are frantically busy. We are just digging at the coal face.”

He said just minutes before he spoke to The Press from New Zealand yesterday, Christchurch had experienced another strong aftershock.

“Recently we had a 5.3 at 4am. You just lie in bed and wake up and you don’t know when they are going to stop; you can’t stand up.”

Mr Tyerman moved to New Zealand as a child in 1970 and now lives in the town of Carterton on the North Island, but has travelled to Christchurch to work on the clean-up.

“The place is just falling apart,” he said. “I have grown up with earthquakes and we get used to them, but this just keeps on going.

“It was really vibrant at first because everybody was spurred on but it’s started to hit home now and they are talking ten to 15 years to rebuild the centre of Christchurch.

“New Zealand is a particularly active place and in a way it’s fascinating. It’s extraordinary to be seeing for the first time in my life what an earthquake can do. I often think of York when I think of this, because the city wouldn’t survive.”