MEMBERS of the Nepalese and Gurkha community in North Yorkshire have officially launched their own fundraising page for victims of the earthquake - which has badly affected their home towns and villages.

Saturday's disaster, which so far has officially claimed 5,000 lives and left many more injured, has devastated many of the villages from which Gurkhas in Catterick Garrison are recruited.

Many hundreds of the town's Nepalese community are still awaiting news from friends and family in Nepal.

According to the United Nations, eight million people have been affected in some way by the disaster, which has wiped out entire villages.

Dr Jagannath Sharma, from Colburn, an executive member of the British Ghurkha and Nepalese Community (BGNC) and a physiotherapist at ITC Catterick Garrison, has helped set up the fundraising committee.

Dr Sharma said the epicentre of the earthquake was in the Gorkha district, 35km west of Kathmandu, where the Gurkha name originates from.

Recruits from the villages are brought to North Yorkshire to complete their infantry training at Catterick Garrison, before moving on to join regiments across Britain.

British Army Gurkha engineers are among those who have flown to Nepal from RAF Brize Norton to take humanitarian aid to the region and help with the recovery mission.

The first soldiers from the Nepalese brigade flew out on Monday with the armed forces mission, which involves a £5m package of UK support, along with disaster response specialists from the UK, search and rescue responders and medical experts.

Dr Sharma said: “Yesterday’s news that a 15-year-old boy was pulled from the rubble after he was trapped for 120 hours in Kathmandu means people are still hoping more survivors will be found.

“There’s massive damage to the villages and properties of the Gurkha recruits. The fact that Gurkha engineers are going over there will definitely help.”

Some 300 British citizens have been housed in the embassy in the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu. Some of them returned home overnight (Thursday, April 30) to be reunited with worried relatives. They included Grahame Jobes, from Sunderland and Roger Strachan, 19, from York, who had been working in Nepal as a voluntary teacher and was in a restaurant in Kathmandu when the quake hit.

Dr Sharma said the Catterick Garrison fundraising committee has now set up their own fundraising page, www.gofundme.com/t6ahx3b and are also looking for volunteers to help them with street collections.

They will be staging a street collection in Darlington at the market and outside HSBC on Saturday (May 2), with another street collection in Richmond on May 16. They hope to stage collections at shopping areas in Teesside and Newcastle and Catterick Garrison soon.

“Our job is to try and collect the money and we will make sure it goes exactly to the people who need it," said Dr Sharma.

"Every penny will go to exactly the right place at the right time; that’s our aim.”

People can donate to the British Gurkhas Nepalese Community (BGNC) at www.gofundme.com/t6ahx3b or donate to the British Gurkha Nepalese Community Lloyds Bank, account number; 0690133 or sort code; 30-91-73.

People can also donate to the Disasters Emergency Commission’s earthquake appeal at; www.dec.org.uk