Remaining Professional When Your Family Is At Risk

Rescuing people when your daughter is in harm's way:

Mr Yusaf was in the station mess when the quake hit. As he and his colleagues raced into town in a truck, they were stopped by a bystander who told them the Pyne Gould building had collapsed.

They arrived on foot, with only the tools they could carry, and were confronted by the full horror of the crumpled building.

"It was a five or six-storey building that had literally just fallen over on to its side and you could see hands waving out of the rubble between the floors.

"You could see people, hear people hollering out to be rescued. Everything was happening very fast but I remember just being struck by the scale of the job."

..."So I knew that she was in there somewhere but I had no way of getting to her," Omar Yusaf said.

"I just had to keep doing what I was doing and trust her teachers had managed to get her out of the building and to a place of safety. I found that absolutely terrifying.

"In a situation like that – I don't mean to sound callous because I love my daughter as much as anyone – but if I concentrated on her then I'm just not going to be able to function here.

"It sounds crazy but I had to put her out of my mind and trust that she was being looked after by somebody."

Kalilah had been badly affected by the carnage. "I don't think I've got the courage to send my daughter back to school in the inner city.

"As it was, she was in one of the most dangerous places she possibly could have been. She had an extremely traumatic day.

"She's only 13 years old and saw buildings collapse on to people. She saw burnt corpses in Latimer Square.