BLACK Country firefighters were today (Thursday) continuing to search collapsed buildings in earthquake-devastated Nepal earthquake but hope of finding anyone alive in the rubble has now all but faded.

Firefighter Dave Haywood, from Stourbridge Fire Station, and Bickenhill station commander Dean Harris, who lives in Stourbridge, are among nine West Midlands firefighters who were deployed to Nepal as part of a UK International Search and Rescue mission in the wake of Saturday’s 7.9 quake, which struck 80k northwest of the capital - Kathmandu.

The international relief mission was continuing today but the 67-strong UK team have now been asked to turn their efforts to body recovery – West Midlands Fire Service confirmed this morning.

The UKISAR team, drawn from UK fire and rescue services and health trusts and deployed by the Department for International Development, were today assisting at the scene of a collapsed six-storey building in Kathmandu.

A spokesman for UKISAR said: “People’s chances of still being alive in the collapsed building are, tragically, virtually nil. We have confirmed that we will support body recovery operations.

“In addition, members of the team will be carrying out health infrastructure assessments in the Halambra and Lantang districts.

“Their team’s skills spread to far more than search and rescue. Several UKISAR members have training in, and experience of, disaster and humanitarian medicine.

“Their health infrastructure and medical assessment will involve gathering and feeding back medical intelligence to the international health organisations on the ground, to help them best prioritise their work and efforts.”

The entire UKISAR deployment is being coordinated by an incident command room run by West Midlands Fire Service.