TRAINING at Caerwent has been “invaluable preparation” for 15 search and rescue charity volunteers who have been sent to Nepal following the devastating earthquake.

In September last year a team from charity Search and Rescue Assistance in Disasters undertook an intense week-long training exercise at former RAF facility Caerwent training area.

Disaster relief charity SARAID simulated devastation from a real-life earthquake and tasked a team of 14 volunteers with rescuing more than 10 mock victims. The volunteers had no idea some of them would be deployed to Nepal just eight months later.

Now 15 fully-trained rescue technicians from the charity were deployed to Kathmandu last week and set up a base just east of the airport. The team have been searching the city as well as surrounding towns and villages.

A spokesman for the charity said: “The rigorous training SARAID was able to do at Caerwent has proved to be invaluable preparation for this deployment to Kathmandu.

“Caerwent offers a range of collapsed buildings which enabled the team to keep their technical search technique skills up, skills they are putting to use in Nepal right now.”

The SARAID team currently working in Nepal has taken 1.5 tonnes of the latest rescue equipment including sound and vibration detection technology, specialist search cameras to locate trapped victims and cutting equipment to tunnel into collapsed buildings.

The team also carries stretchers, a medical kit, ropes, generators, tents and their own food to make sure they are not a strain on local resources.

The unpaid volunteers come from all walks of life including the fire and police service, paramedics, civil engineers and electricians.

The Bristol-based team members who trained at Caerwent had worked on overseas missions including the 2004 Sri Lanka tsunami, and the 2005 Pakistan earthquake, as well as the devastating 2010 Haiti earthquake in which more than 100,000 people died.

At the time, operational team member and fundraising officer Gary Jacobs said the conditions set up at the Caerwent training area were the nearest match as possible to being on a real mission.