BRITISH Army wife Emma Jones has spoken to Army&You of her relief after her family returned to the UK following the tragic earthquake in Nepal.
The Jones’ were set to feature in the Postcard section of our summer edition, explaining what life is like for British Army families living in BGN, Kathmandu.
Thankfully, the Joneses and other British families were evacuated via the JCCC process, initially to the Services Cotswold Centre, and are all reported to be safe and well.
Emma said: “I went into shock but I’m getting there, it’s all just a bit hard to take in. Some families took the decision to stay at first, but they have since returned back to the UK too.”
Many Gurkha families will be worried about their families back home. The Gurkha Welfare Trust (GWT) reported that sadly, 12 Gurkha veterans and widows are already listed among the fatalities. Many more are injured or have lost their homes.
The GWT is one of many disaster relief organisations working on the ground to mitigate the effects of the earthquake, a task made doubly hard when a second significant tremor hit earlier this week.
The Trust has already committed £2 million in support of immediate action. If you can help, please donate via https://www.gwt.org.uk/news/earthquake-appeal
The Services Cotswold Centre at Corsham provides a secure affordable place to stay in temporary housing for families of serving personnel from all three services.
Emma’s daughter Charlotte (12) wrote this poem about her family’s experience:
The earthquake
The ground starts dancing,
Windows shaking violently,
My nerves start to grow.
Garden walls destroyed,
On camp everyone’s scared,
Tourists everywhere.
Camp has got busy,
Brits and teachers and tourists,
Help! It’s so busy.
I can’t get to sleep,
I’m finding it very hard,
Everyone is.
Some people can’t cope,
They are getting paranoid,
They’re getting stressed out.
We are getting out,
A flight back to the UK,
We are going home.
We are safe and sound,
Families are arriving,
Our friends are here.
Looking at the news,
It is very frightening,
I’m glad we are home.
Not all families evacuated from Nepal there are 3 of us who stayed.
There have been 293 aftershocks since the first earthquake on April 25th plus several other earthquakes. We were all offered the chance of a free flight but as we have no children I chose to stay with my husband who the later part of last year suffered from acute depression and anxiety (you are doing a piece about him) (Capt Justin Taylor) and that is the reason I stayed. I was very scared but needed to stay to make sure my husband would be ok. There is still just 3 wives left here 1 with 2 boys with her.
Janet