Shaky start to Kiwi student's exchange

Exchange student Billy Greer. Photo / Supplied

Gillian Thomas was able to relax and concentrate on making strawberry jam at home in Dunedin yesterday afternoon, after finding out her 17-year-old son Billy Greer was safe in Santiago.

The former Otago Boys High School student is completing a year as a Rotary exchange student and was due to start school in the Chilean capital today.

Ms Thomas said that after hearing the news of the earthquake shortly after 7 am yesterday, she had "a terrible feeling in her stomach".

It was an anxious few hours before she received a Facebook message from her son around 10am.

She knew he was going to a party and was likely to be staying overnight with friends, so it was difficult to know how to get in touch with him.

His host parents spoke little English.

She said she was very relieved to find out her son was fine, although his father Richard Greer "seemed to be perfectly confident" his son would be safe.

Ms Thomas said her son, the youngest of the couple's four children, was at a party when the earthquake struck.

Santiago is about 325km northeast of Conception, which was near the epicentre of the quake.

At first, Billy thought the music was shaking the floor, his mother said, but then it got worse and worse and he and fellow party-goers realised it was an earthquake.

He said people panicked, forgetting safe earthquake behaviour, and all ran outside.

Slates were falling off the house and it was "pretty scary".

Afterwards they realised they could not call anyone and that public transport was not running so they could not go home.

When phone connections were re-established, his cellphone battery ran out, but he was able to call his host parents from a friend's place and his host family were able to come and collect him.

The apartments of the host parents, who live separately, had some cracks to walls and in one, part of the ceiling had fallen through.

Ms Thomas said her son, who has been in Chile since late January, had been looking forward to the start of school today, but it had been postponed.

He had already reported feeling several aftershocks, but Ms Thomas felt that the significance of the disaster had not really sunk in for him yet.

- OTAGO DAILY TIMES