‘All the flights are grounded and there are no roads left’: Two more medics trapped in Nepal

‘We just wish we could do something to help in Kathmandu’


Two more medics are currently stuck in Nepal after the biggest earthquake in 80 years has devastated the region.

Third year medicine students Alice Cheape and Louise Robb have been stranded in Lumbini in Nepal, where the natural disaster has already claimed the lives of over 3500 people.

This comes after we revealed third years Joe Feeney and Calum Henderson, both 21, were found safe — they were trekking in the Himalayas when the earthquake struck.

Alice, 21, said: “It [the building] started shaking with the 6.7 aftershock.

“People were crying and screaming. There’s not much power here and the WiFi keeps on cutting out.

“But there aren’t many tourists. I was travelling here on the day of the first earthquake and have been stuck here since.

“It’s looking like I’m going to be here for quite some time.”

Calum Henderson is also stranded in Nepal

Alice and her coursemate Louise were lucky and survived the worst of the quakes, like Joe and Calum — but they are trapped in Lumbini for now.

She added: “My passport was water-damaged on a trek just before the airport.

“So I have to go back to Kathmandu to get an emergency one before I’m allowed to leave the country.

“But all the flights are grounded and there are no roads left between here and Kathmandu.

“I got here on the 8th of April. I spent a few days in a hospital in Kathmandu and stayed with a local family in Patan, the area hit worst by the earthquake.

“Their house is still partially standing but they spent the night in the cold.”

Joe Feeney had been trekking with Calum

Contact within Nepal is scarce as Alice said: “We think a few people we met might have been on the mountain roads when the earthquake hit and haven’t heard from them since.

“We are both fine, we just have no idea when we can go home. We can’t contact the embassy.”

When the earthquake hit, the third year medic said: “We were travelling on the bus and had stopped when the building started shaking.

“The ground was shaking for about a minute and a half and lots of people running. And then we were trying to call home.”

Despite the awful situation, the two girls maintain they were okay.

Alice added: “We just wish we could do something to help in Kathmandu.”