Disasters can hit everyone - some lose their jobs, others their home, others a loved one. But how do you do not get paralyzed? How can disaster turn into a force?

In February 2011, Christchurch suffered a severe earthquake. 185 people died in one of the worst disasters that hit the country in peacetime. Thousands were injured.

When that happened, Nick Walls sat in the office talking on the phone.

"When I realized that it was an earthquake, I dived under my desk, because that's what we've learned in school," he says.

Six weeks in hospital

Nick Walls was trapped for ten hours under that desk, which collapsed under the pressure of the roof that collapsed. In the end, the rescue personnel managed to lift him out. When he shows pictures of what the house looked like, where he was stuck on floor two, it is incomprehensible that someone came out alive.

Eighteen people died in his office building, 70 percent of the buildings in central Christchurch were destroyed.

- I'm a logical person, he says. When the building collapsed, I felt; no broken bones, no blood anywhere, so I'm probably pretty good. Someone will find us and then we can go home. Then of course it was six weeks in hospital in between, he says and laughs.

Goes on

He laughs all the time, Nick is a positive person. The earthquake is still a trauma to many people in Christchurch, but Nick has chosen to move on.

- Either you have left Christchurch to never come back. Or you stay there and try to make the city even better - and I'm one of them, he says.

See Correspondents on how to move forward in life after a disaster.