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Nick Versteeg, B.C. filmmaker, returns from Nepal earthquake

Nick Versteeg, B.C. filmmaker, returns from Nepal earthquake

A Vancouver Island filmmaker who was working in Nepal when the earthquake struck says he was lucky to have escaped unhurt.

Nick Versteeg was in Nepal last month filming the work of a free dental clinic in Khumjung, a village in the north east of the country. He had a successful week documenting the operation, before hiking down the valley to the village of Namche Bazaar, close to Everest base camp.

He says he had just ordered lunch when the quake struck.

"We were sitting in the lodge and just ordered lunch and the building began to shake...and everything started to shake," he told CBC News on his return Friday.

"The owner and his daughter ran to the front and we put what had learned here [in B.C.] and ran to an archway...and we were very fortunate.

"The building we were in, the walls fell inward. If it had fallen outwards, we could have been hit. And then the older building in front of it started to disintegrate in front of [us], rocks coming down, plaster coming down... Kids screaming, people running through the street...

"I have never been in a 7.8 earthquake," Versteeg notes. "And for the next couple of days, everywhere you sat — in a building — people would walk and the building would shake, and you would say, literally, 'Oh my god, here we go again."

Versteeg says that while things were bad in Namche Bazaar, news from Khumjung — the higher altitude village he had spent the week filming in — was devastating.

"We can't confirm this," he says, "but [we heard] that Khumjung was 80 per cent destroyed. That was really sad to hear."

He says he plans to help the people of Khumjung in whatever way he can.

"We will find out what happened in Khumjung, and do what we can in terms of a fundraiser of film evening to help the people.

"We won't be going back too soon...We couldn't believe there would be an ending like this."