A SUFFOLK woman has told of the terrifying moment her brother rang her from the midst of the earthquake to say he feared he was going to die.

Val Mann, of Hacheston, near Framlingham, received the desperate phone call from Chris Brown as his home crumbled around him during the devastating earthquake that struck the port town of Lyttelton.

The dramatic call to Suffolk came just after midnight yesterday, waking Mrs Mann from her bed.

“I heard this horrendous noise and Chris said ‘Val, I just wanted you to know I love you very much. We’ve had an horrendous earthquake and I fear we’re not going to survive’,” she said.

“He gave me a list of telephone numbers to call for him and as he was talking I could hear everything being thrown across the room.

“They were absolutely terrified. He said to me ‘I don’t know if we are going to make it’. It was a difficult conversation as he was so distressed. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t stop shaking. I just told him ‘you are going to be okay’. He promised he would try to call me back.”

Mrs Mann, 65, said she tried to keep her 51-year-old brother calm until the call ended. She later managed to speak to a victim support worker a number of times during the day and was assured that he and his partner, Ken Maynard, were safe.

Mr Brown, originally from Waldringfield, moved to New Zealand about 15 years ago and lives in a bungalow in Lyttelton.

“He is a lot calmer now. They don’t yet know the extent of the damage to the house but in New Zealand they look after each other, as we used to during the war,” said Mrs Mann, a mother-of-two and grandmother-of-four.

“I asked him if he was going to come home and he said ‘no’. He loves it there and they’re still in the house. They don’t want to leave.

“I just hope he will be alright. I think they have lost friends and their cat ran away. It was just awful. I can still hear the fear in his voice.”

Mr Brown, who used to work at the main post office in Ipswich, told the James Hazell show on BBC Radio Suffolk: “It makes the first one in September like a small rumble. This was hell. I thought this was the end, I really did. I honestly thought we were a gonner. It’s the most terrifying thing.

“It’s hard to explain to people who haven’t experienced it. It’s just horrendous.

“If you imagine yourself walking on a moving conveyor at the airport backwards, with people falling on top of you, things in the way, obstacles here and there.”

Mr Brown was preparing a meal when the quake hit and managed to get out of the kitchen just in time.

“The physical building itself is fine,” he said. “We have lost part of the kitchen, that doesn’t look too good but it’s safe.

“We were knocking that bit down and extending it anyway so in a way it’s quite fortunate.”

There was a real fear about the impact a secondary earthquake could have – especially as they had no power and roads were blocked. However, he said people were rallying round to support each other.