THE latest earthquake to shake New Zealand has put the reconstruction work “back to day one” according to a former York man who is working to rebuild Christchurch.

Glazier Julian Tyreman, 43, who has family living in the York area, has been working to repair some of the many devastated buildings in Christchurch since it was hit by the quake on February 22.

On Monday, the city was hit by a powerful aftershock, further damaging roads and buildings.

Mr Tyreman said: “I was just working on a window which I was repairing from the previous earthquake and we had a 5.5 aftershock. I hung on to my gear and we chatted about if we would carry on working that day.”

He and his team decided to move on to an outdoor job, repairing the glass in a large excavator vehicle.

However, as he was driving his van out of the works building, a far larger aftershock struck.

The owner of the glazing company said: “It was way bigger. Julian was backing the van out of the works and he was pretty much lucky to get out of it.

“Parts of the building were coming down around him. I would not call this an aftershock, this was a quake – at the time I was fixing the roof of a 40-tonne digger and it was bouncing it up and down like a rubber ball.

Mr Tyreman said: “It was pretty horrendous and really frightening. When we got the first aftershock we knew there might be another one, but they are usually smaller.

“But with this one people were crying on the street.”

It is believed there were no serious casualties resulting from the latest tremor.

Mr Tyerman moved to New Zealand from the Micklegate area of York 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.

Speaking to The Press last month, he said: “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.”