An emergency response volunteer from Evesham is in Pakistan helping with the relief work.

Jonathan Wharrad, of Briar Close, flew out to the earthquake-hit country from Heathrow Airport last Friday after hearing the disastrous news.

More than 30,000 people have been reported to be killed by the powerful earthquake which registered 7.6 on the Richter scale and struck Pakistan, India and Afghanistan on Friday at 4.30am British time.

The 32-year-old independent property developer has been training with RAPID UK for the past five years. Although a little apprehensive at first, he was more than keen to fly out and put his training into practice.

The RAPID UK team are a voluntary organisation who attend disasters worldwide providing trained and experienced search and rescue help.

The voluntarily unit, based in Gloucester, is a leading rescue team with more than 20 years experience in dealing with disasters such as this.

Mr Wharrad's wife, Claire aged 31, who hasn't heard from her husband since, said: "I haven't heard from Jonathan directly but had an update from the RAPID headquarters in Gloucester on Tuesday. I know they're working on rescuing survivors from a 12-storey block of flats. The building's quite high and can store little pockets of air allowing people to survive for a certain amount of time so they're hoping to pull out as many people as possible."

"The volunteers at Gloucester have told me Jonathan and the team made a satellite call on Monday night to let everyone know how they were doing. I know he's fine but he is working flat out, they all are. The medical doctor out there has advised them to get some rest and work in shifts." Volunteer from RAPID UK Brian Davison said the rescue team eas in Islamabad yesterday.

"The weather conditions out there are deteriorating with dust and rain storms, especially up north. The good news is they've managed to rescue a mother and two-year-old baby from the rubble and have pulled seven people out alive, " he said.