Most were struggling to come to terms with what they had seen.
Dunedin financial adviser Lindsay Thorburn still had liquefaction mud on his boots when he arrived at the baggage terminal.
"I was in a cafe in Merivale when the quake hit. It was total carnage," he said.
"There was hot food and coffee flying all over the place. Older people were falling over; people were running outside the cafe and getting run over by cars in the street. It was that bad. I've never seen anything like it. It was a complete stopper.
"Water mains had burst; cars were moving by themselves. The water came up two feet (0.6m) and went down again 15 minutes later, leaving a fine silt mud. I've still got it all over my boots.
"The worst thing was the dazed looks on people's faces. There were 60-year-old accountants and 20-year-old students wandering around with the same look on their faces. People were saying they'd seen dead people and you could see it on their faces," Mr Thorburn said.
"People were walking along the streets with their shoes in their hands. It was surreal. There were heaps of hugs going on.
"The aftershocks kept going all afternoon and all night and they were all between 3 and 4.3. I'm just pleased to be back."
As flight NZ5351 passengers arrived, a group of six University of Otago Campus Watch officers left Dunedin for Christchurch to assist in the rescue effort.
"We have a close relationship with Canterbury University and we wanted to do what we could to help," Campus Watch operations co-ordinator Paddy Stewart said.
