AN Aberystwyth family caught up in the deadly earthquake on the Greek island of Kos have described the panic as their hotel shook in the middle of the night.

Jamie and Sarah Martin, who fell over and banged her arm when the first quake struck, were due to fly back to the UK with their six-year-old son Jacob following a week-long holiday, as the Cambrian News went to press on Tuesday.

Speaking to the Cambrian News from Greece, Mr Martin described his family being woken in the middle of the night to loud rumbling and the shaking walls of their hotel room as a 6.6-magnitude earthquake hit the island, killing two people and injuring hundreds more.

The quake hit at 1.30am local time on Friday — or 11.30pm UK time on Thursday — and postman Jamie, 34, and his wife Sarah, 40, who is a nurse at Bronglais Hospital, gathered Jacob and a few belongings as quickly as they could.

“We were in the hotel room, all fast asleep, and the next thing I heard was this noise,” said Mr Martin, whose son Jacob attends Ysgol Llwyn yr Eos, Penparcau.

“I thought I was dreaming initially, but then felt the shaking and then looked at my wife and said ‘did you feel that?’, and it started again.

“I got up and looked out of the window and the water had come out over the sides of the pool.”

See this week’s Aberystwyth edition for the full story, in shops and online now