NI teacher's earthquake terror

The earthquake struck in Sichuan province on Monday

A Londonderry man who is teaching in China has described Monday's earthquake in Sichuan province as "terrifying".

Gavin McCloskey, from the Waterside, fled from a 20-storey building in the city of Chengdu, 60 kilometres from the epicentre of the earthquake.

"When we got out, there was dust flying up from the building and we thought the building was going to collapse."

At least 12,000 people are feared dead in the disaster. The death toll is expected to rise sharply.

Mr McCloskey said that at first he hadn't realised it was an earthquake.

We could see cracks appearing in the wall of the building Gavin McCloskey

"We could feel the floor shaking under our feet, and at first we tried to get under a doorway, stay somewhere a bit safe, but as things got more scary we thought we'd better get out of here.

"We just started flying down the stairs and we could see cracks appearing in the wall of the building.

"We got down to the bottom of the stairs and out to the back, it was pretty mad," he said.

"Our flats, it's a very high gate with spikes, and the gate is locked, but people were desperately trying to get over this gate, they were in such a panic."