The team of teachers and nurses were in the middle of a two-week stint in Nepal when the earthquake struck the crowded Kathmandu valley at noon two days ago.

Rotarian Murray Patterson said all members of the group managed to escape the natural disaster without injury. 

“They were originally up in a small village around 150 kilometres from Kathmandu that hardly exists anymore. They left there on Friday to attend Anzac Day ceremonies at the Australian embassy on Saturday,” he said.

“After that, they were then travelling somewhere else in a car and noticed bikes on the side of the road began to fall down, and then the car began to shake, and they thought ‘oh no, this isn’t good’.”

Mr Patterson said the team was sleeping on the floor of a hotel after their accommodation was deemed too unsafe to stay in. He said their original plans were to fly back to Australia on Saturday, but Orange Daybreak was trying to find a way to bring them home earlier.

“The airport is only open to emergency aircraft at the moment, like humanitarian aid, so it’s very limited in terms of passenger flights out of there, but we’re doing the best we can,” he said.