For B.C. residents with loved ones in Haiti, Thursday brought continued angst for some, and relief for others.

Surrey resident Garry Auguste has been trying to phone his mother, brother -- anyone in his family -- in his native Haiti.

All he gets on the other end is silence.

"I have a list of phone numbers that I dial every five minutes to see if I can get through," he told CTV News.

"We are getting kind of desperate now. We're hoping to be able to know what's happening, to at least know if one is alive or not."

Images of the destruction from Tuesday's massive earthquake are too painful to watch on TV. So Auguste and his wife, Ruth, go through collections of photographs from home.

"We love them, we want to hear from them," he said.

Birthday wish

On Vancouver Island, Naniamo resident Sherry Eisel can't turn away from the television.

Her fianc�, Harrington Rigaud, a member of the Haitian police force, is missing.

"I don't want to see a body laying in the street and wondering ... is that Harrington?" she said.

Eisel said she checks her email and Facebook account every few minutes.

The last time she called him was right when the earthquake struck. The phone picked up but no answered.

"The crying, the wailing and the screaming went on for two minutes and I kept saying, 'Hello, Hello. Then the phone went dead."

Friday is Eisel's birthday. Sobbing as she spoke, Eisel said she has only one wish.

"Last year on my birthday a plane landed on the Hudson River and everyone survived. Tomorrow I would like to get a phone call saying that Harrington is alive and well. That's what I want for my birthday."

Television surprise

Abbotsford resident Julie Thiessen got her wish fulfilled Thursday.

Thiessen's parents, Al and Ev Hromek, who live in Kelowna, were in Haiti on an aid mission when the earthquake struck.

She turned on CTV's Canada AM Thursday morning and saw her parents on a boat that had just arrived in the Dominican Republic from Haiti.

Her parents had been rescued from underneath a collapsed roof.

"That was unbelievable to see them and see them walking and that they were okay," she said.

With reports from CTV British Columbia's Stephen Smart and Jim Beatty