With aid beginning to flow through Kathmandu airport, UK’s ShelterBox is working with a cluster of charities at Sindhupalchowk, a district containing 79 mountain village communities As terrain goes, it could hardly be more daunting.

Eight of the world’s fourteen highest peaks are in Nepal. And, somewhere up there in the highest inhabited altitudes on earth, are thousands of villagers desperate for shelter, food, fresh water and medical assistance.

Cornwall-based disaster relief agency ShelterBox is part of a cluster of global charities - including the Red Cross, the Agency for Technical Co-operation and Development (ACTED), Handicap International, and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) – co-ordinating relief in the country.

Before the earth shook on 25 April almost 300,000 people lived in Sindhupalchowk’s 79 village communities. Now around 4,000 are thought to have died. Forty people have been rescued from the debris, but over 3,000 are still missing. Rescue dogs specially trained in the Swiss Alps search for persons buried in the rubble.

ShelterBox volunteer Nicola Hinds has just returned from three days in the town of Chautara, where the District Health Office will be used as an aid depot before onward distributions.

Nicola says, ‘This is one of the areas worst hit by the earthquake. We spent the first night camping on the football ground - no water or electric, but lots of barking dogs! And you can feel the aftershocks much more when you sleep on the ground!’

Nicola and three colleagues had been meeting the local Red Cross, preparing to get ShelterBox aid out to the surrounding villages. A consignment of 1,000 tents and shelter kits has arrived at Kathmandu airport, and will be on its way to Chautara early tomorrow morning. Nicola says that this beautiful area, with vast panoramas up to the Himalayas, contains many communities that still haven’t been reached since the earthquake. ‘The main town is shattered, lots of teetering buildings, lots of ruins. Very poignant to see the survivors picking through the rubble for personal items.’

In Chautara the Norwegian Red Cross has provided a tented field hospital complete with theatre, obstetricians and GPs. Prior to this badly wounded people were being treated in a tent on the football pitch. Nicola adds, ‘Helicopters are still bringing in injured people from the outlying regions as they gradually reach them. We went out to several rural communities - just piles of wood and rubble where homes once stood. There is so much debris that there is no room for tents. Also the tiny terraces of steeply shelving land are too small. So the team up there will distribute tarpaulins and tools so that temporary shelter can be built before the monsoon starts.’ ‘Many men and boys are appearing with shaved heads....a sign that they are in mourning.’ ShelterBox now has a team of twelve in Nepal, focused on Kathmandu and now Sindhupalchowk. Truck journeys to Sindhupalchowk up steep, winding roads take three hours or more. This district is one of the country’s foremost tourist areas, with action sports, hot springs, river rafting, and it is home to artists and poets. But it is now hosting an enormous aid push, in a race against time before June’s monsoon rains make some villages even less accessible. Among the 95% of buildings lying in ruins here are some of Nepal’s most famous ancient temples.

Fellow ShelterBox volunteer Becky Maynard says, ‘Despite the terrible conditions there is a feeling of hope in many places. Children are laughing and smiling, and even a family next to a destroyed house seem happy.’ ‘However this is in the towns and villages on the main road. There is still a colossal amount of work to do to reach the thousands of small rural communities who have still received little or nothing in the way of aid.’