For 33 years, Robyn Couper worked as a missionary in Haiti.
Last night, she was "absolutely gutted" by news of the disaster.
"This is a catastrophe," she said.
Miss Couper (59), who returned to Oamaru at the end of August last year for family reasons, has been frantically trying to contact Haiti since learning on Wednesday of the devastating earthquake.
As she lay in bed that night, unable to sleep and unsuccessful in her attempts to contact anyone in the country, she recalled the names of those close to her who were living in the capital Port-au-Prince.
The quake's epicentre was only 16km from the city.
There were young people who had spent time in her home who were now studying at university in the city.
The sister of one of her best friends lived there and the mother and sisters of a girl who lived with her for 11 years and was "like an adopted daughter" lived at the epicentre.
"It's just overwhelming. I'm all right for a while and then I lose it," she said.
While there were estimates the death toll could reach 100,000, Miss Couper feared it could be more like 400,000 or 500,000 "because I've lived there".
People lived in such crammed conditions and, in the best of times, there was no infrastructure and medical care was "very, very basic".
Haiti had gone "deeper and deeper and deeper into the mire of poverty".
Miss Couper said she spent nearly all her adult life in Haiti because that was where she felt God wanted her to be - "there have been other New Zealanders in Haiti, nobody's been there as long as I have" - and it was normal for 22 people to have the main meal of the day at her house.
Miss Couper said she would "definitely" be doing something to help and suggested if New Zealanders wanted to do something, they should give money through a bona fide organisation.
