A VOLUNTEER from Dart­mouth who survived the Nepal earthquake has spoken about the horrors of what seemed like a 'war zone'.

But Zoe Nash says she is even more determined to get aid to those affected by the disaster and is inspired to continue working with charity projects overseas.

Zoe, 30, a volunteer with a health project in Nepal, was caught up in last month's quake that hit the Himalayan nation – 10 years after cheating death in the Boxing Day tsunami which hit Thailand.

She said her double ordeal had made her appreciate being alive.

'I never feel unlucky, I feel incredibly blessed to be alive,' she said.

'It's taught me to be grateful for the basic things in life, and never to take them for granted.

'And I'm amazed by the strength of people who've lost everything.'

Speaking by email to the Chronicle about her terrifying ordeal, Zoe said: 'Through this experience, I am inspired even further to not only continue to offer my care to countries like Nepal, as even more I see how much is it needed, but I also feel called to build awareness and raise funds for acupuncture projects that are doing such incredible work in third world countries.

'I have departed Nepal now, but it still has a huge place in my heart. The Nepalese people touched me deeply with their kind hearts and generous nature. They deserve all the help they can receive. For a country that already had so little and life was already so hard, to have this on top is devastating.

'I intend to go back once the organising of the practitioner camps is set up and we have a team ready to go to offer support.'

Zoe was on a bus during the first earthquake struck in April. A second major temor hit the country on Tuesday, May 12.

The number of people killed in both quakes now stands at more than 8,600.

In December 2004, she was washed off a Thai beach by a giant wave but managed to clamber to safety in the tsunami that killed 200,000 people.

When the quake struck, she was in Bhaktapur, the historic world heritage city in the Kathmandu Valley, where at least 200 people are feared to have died as historic buildings toppled.

'On Saturday, April 25, at exactly midday, the world started to rock under my feet,' she said.

'I was on a bus at the time, and it started to shake violently from side to side, people started to scream, and in a panic started to push and shove themselves.

'As we all evacuated the bus, we realised that the ground was shaking just as violently, the houses around us where shaking bricks that started to crash on the ground around us, motorbikes were falling over in the street.

'The air that just a moment ago was so clear was now thick with dust. Families where clinging to one another in sheer terror of what had just happened and what could continue to happen again at any second.

'We waited for two hours in a safe zone, until we decided to continue on and find some shelter to find a safer resting place.

'After the earthquake struck, the aftershocks continued to rumble through what seemed like every 30 minutes, which was a very unsetting and disturbing experience as each one ran through my veins and arose a sensation of panic.

'Seeing the devastation to the houses was just unbelievable – just piles of broken bricks where houses once stood, and mounds of rubble where beautiful historic monuments had stood for thousands of years.

'People gathered in the town square on big mats, acting as a salvage point for people being rescued from the rubble.

'What once was a place so full of music, energy, colour, people, smiling faces, and bustle was now what seemed like a war zone, the air filled with pain and suffering.

'The Nepalese started to create camps on the side of the roads, in the nearby fields, on any grassy land away from buildings to take refuge from the disaster. They sat on plastic mats and created plastic tarpaulins over their heads to protect them from the burning sun in the day and the wild rains at night.

'They sat in large groups of community, the entire city becoming suddenly homeless and stranded, either without a home now having lost everything in the earthquake or too afraid to go near the town or buildings for fear of it all collapsing on them any moment or another earthquake destroying the last remaining standing buildings.'

Zoe had journeyed­ to Nepal at the beginning of April and was living with a local family in Bhaktapur, about 40 miles from Kathmandu.

After sleeping on the roadside for nights she returned to the shattered town of Bhaktapur.

'Days after the quake I made it back to the family whose home I was staying in and they were sitting in blankets on the road outside under a plastic cover, all looking terrified,' she said. 'I didn't feel safe either to go inside the house as the earthquake was still rumbling every hour or so, making being inside a very unpleasant and frightening experience.

'We sat on the roadside for hours and hours... just waiting for nothing... waiting for it to stop... waiting for time to save us.

'Then, as the rain started, we needed to find shelter to rest for the night, we found five empty abandoned busses by the highway and took shelter – disabled people, elderly, children, babies, all generations, all the people of the local town sleeping side by side as the earth continued to shake and tremble and the rain poured from the sky.'

In the days that followed, Zoe managed to get in touch with a British refugee camp and was advised to leave the country. She travelled to Delhi, where she raised awareness of the families in Nepal, and is now in Bali.

'There are not a enough resources to look after the Nepalese themselves and staying was another person using these resources,' she said.

'Unless you were able to do search and rescue or were a paramedic then the best advice was to leave and generate funding back home to enable the rebuilding of Nepal and bring supplies and help the people.'

Zoe, who was brought up in Dittisham, studied for a degree in traditional Chinese medicine at the University of Salford, Manchester.

She had been on a five-week voluntary placement working with a Ayurvedic hospital offering acupuncture.

'I was volunteering at the Acupuncture Relief Project, a donations based, non-profit organisation, whereby visiting practitioners come and offer their skills and care to the Nepalese,' she said. 'It is such a rich and rewarding experience. Although you are 'giving' so much of your time, energy, and attention, what you receive in return is literally priceless on so many levels.

'Working in a third world practice, you may be the only practitioner they have seen in their lives as some of these people live in rural villages far away from medical support and so do not have the means of transport to reach the towns to see the doctor, or the financial means to do so.

'These people are incredibly resilient and tough. They work extremely hard in the fields looking after cattle and crops with pure manpower.

'Lifting, caring, digging, all day in the heat, as well as looking after the family, cooking for large numbers and doing all the washing by hand, there is not much if any time in the day to relax. As a result, they suffer from a number of physical ailments , from arthritis, degenerative conditions, and muscular and skeletal pains in the all the joints that are continuously overused and strained.

'ARP has several clinics set up in Nepal, one attached to a Ayurvedic clinic in Bhaktapur, where I was based, and also a clinic running alongside that one in the rural village nearby.

'It also has five other clinics that are solely run by ARP and set up in much more remote hard to access parts of Nepal.

'You all have heard the recent news of the devastating earthquake in Nepal. I was there, I witnessed the collapse, destruction and suffering with my own eyes. I am passionate about rebuilding the project and allowing for more aid to reach and support Nepal.

'Many of the clinics that ARP has set up collapsed in the earthquake and need rebuilding.

'They are organising more interpreters to be trained, to enable more practitioners to go to aid and organising bigger camps to offer post earthquake trauma support to the people of Nepal that will be still dealing with the aftermath of the tragedy for a long time to come, long after we've all stopped talking about it.'

Zoe's mum, Celia, who lives in Dittisham, said it has been a worrying time.

'Thankfully Zoe managed to get a message to her sister, Anna,' she said. 'Eleven years ago she sent one which said: "There's been a tsunami, but I'm okay". This time she wrote: "There's been an earthquake, but I'm still okay".'

Anyone who would like to donate funds to the ARP towards rebuilding the clinics in Nepal can do so at www. acupuncturereliefproject.org.