Cindy Terasme screams after seeing the feet of her dead 14-year-old brother in the rubble of the collapsed St. Gerard School in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (Gerald Herbert/Associated Press)

Kim Gringhuis was in the kitchen of her home in Port-au-Prince on Tuesday evening making dinner when the earthquake struck.

The Toronto woman, who is principal of the Adoration Christian school in the Haitian capital, said her house "started to violently shake." When the quake ended a few seconds later pictures and ornaments had fallen from the walls, her toilet was broken and her world had changed forever.

"I ran out of the house and I saw some of my neighbours running — and there was just chaos everywhere. Everyone was running up and down the streets screaming and you couldn't tell what was happening it was just a total mess."

Speaking to CBC News after arriving at Toronto's Pearson International Airport on Friday morning, Gringhuis said it was such an unnerving experience she could hardly function. "I didn't even really register that it was an earthquake. I just sort of stood there in shock and didn't know what to do."

"People were crying. People were praying. People were singing. People were just running around. Nobody knew what to do. There just was no order at all."

In one of the poorest countries in the world, Gringhuis said, the earthquake made things even worse.

"Most Haitians barely get through the day — they have enough money to buy themselves some food and then the next day they start over from scratch. They have no bank of extra money. They have no stock of extra food. They have nothing. When their house is gone they literally have nothing."

Her thoughts quickly turned to her school, her students and teachers. But when she got to the school her heart sank.

"The entire school has collapsed. There was a basketball tournament going on in the yard — thankfully no students or teachers were in the school at the time - everyone managed to exit the area safely. But the entire school is finished. There is nothing to salvage."

For the next day Gringhuis and her colleagues searched through her area of Port-au-Prince looking for survivors.

"We just walked around and tried to find our students and teachers. And tried to find out who was still alive and who had died," she said.

Choking back tears, Gringhuis said she is feeling survivor guilt.

"It was horrible to leave," she said. "I feel like I've abandoned them ... but staying would have make no sense. We had very little water and food — we wanted to save it for those who were alive and couldn't leave the country."

Gringhuis said she intends to go back to rebuild her school and to help the people she loves to rebuild their lives.

"I'm going to tell other people about what happened. I'm going to raise awareness and I'm going to go back as soon as I possibly can."