Johannesburg – South African Davis Cup tennis player Rik de Voest lived through a 7.6-magnitude earthquake which struck north-western Costa Rica late on Wednesday afternoon.
De Voest and his wife are on holiday in the Central American country.
Their accommodation in the province of Guanacaste was in the heart of the quake's epi-centre on the Papagayo peninsula.
De Voest explained via the social networking site Twitter what he and his wife experienced.
“Our whole villa shook, things falling off the shelves. We rushed outside onto the golf course and waited it out, our hearts were pounding, but we are fine.”
De Voest had decided to take a holiday after the United States Open before travelling to Montreal, where he will do duty next week for South Africa in their Davis Cup World Group playoff tie against Canada.
The Costa Rica earthquake caused landslides, collapsed bridges, and resulted in one death, officials said.
There have been two moderate aftershocks near Nicova and Samara.
Chile's navy declared a tsunami warning on the country's coastline following the quake. – Sapa