Shirley Forward was left brimming with relief after calling the Chronicle on Tuesday in a desperate bid to find her brother, missing since Monday's 7.5 earthquake.
Former Whanganui man Alan Best and his wife Adrienne Best live and work in Clarence, Marlborough, and close to the epicentre of Monday's earthquake.
Both were unaccounted for and efforts by Mrs Forward, who lives in Castlecliff, were proving fruitless.
"I rang the Red Cross, Civil Defence, tried to get on talkback radio but it was too busy. I'm a bit desperate, I don't know where to turn for help next," she told the Chronicle.
The Bests live alongside the Clarence River, downstream of where a large slip had damned the river and sent a surge of water downstream, threatening a party of canoeists. "They look straight down upon the Clarence - I think their house is high enough - I just don't know," Mrs Forward said.