A firefighter has witnessed "total" destruction in Nepal after helping the UK's rescue operation following the earthquake that has killed 7,300 people to date.
Gary Carroll and his springer spaniel Diesel have spent the past week in the country as part of the UK's International Search and Rescue team helping survivals of the 7.8 magnitude
The 44-year-old from Torphins, Aberdeenshire, is one of six firefighters from Scotland who are helping in the search and rescue mission for victims of the magnitude 7.8 earthquake.
He said: "It was all a rush when the call came. I was looking forward to being able to help people and putting the training Diesel's had into action.
"On the ground we've seen total destruction in some of the outlying areas of Nepal - most buildings are affected in some way. I saw a lot of buildings that have collapsed. We've also seen buildings partially collapsed and landslides. A lot of people are under tents or covers because they are too scared to be in the buildings.
"Diesel and I were tasked to search two buildings. Diesel worked well - he covered the whole area and did what he was trained to do."
The mission is the third search and rescue deployment for Mr Carroll after he went to Sumatra in Indonesia in 2009 and and Christchurch in New Zealand in 2011 but it is the first time the dog has been deployed.
"Diesel has coped well in Nepal - he's stayed calm and relaxed. He was fine on the plane over and generally being here doesn't seem to have fazed him - he's just the same as at home. He got his fur clipped a few weeks ago during an exercise in France so he was ready to cope with the heat," he said.
"We've got a very close bond. We've been through this together - I'm looking out for him and I think he's looking out for me."
Other Scottish colleagues in Nepal include Martin Vardy from Aberdeen, Martyn Ferguson from Turriff in Aberdeenshire, John Aitchison from Gourdon near Stonehaven and Daniel Gall and Steven Nicholl from Forfar in Angus.
They are part of UK Government's disaster recovery effort.
XREF SMALL STORY ON FOREIGN
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article