A MUM has been reunited with the daughter she thought had died in the Nepal earthquake.

Sarah Darling, from Wigmore, spent hours leaving unanswered phone messages in a frantic bid to contact her only daughter Caroline in Kathmandu.

She feared the worst, saying: “For a fair chunk of the time I thought Caroline was dead.

“I feel truly blessed. Seeing Caroline again was the best day of my life.”

Sarah’s agony ended when she received the simplest of text messages saying “Mum, I’m OK” before the signal was lost in the disaster zone.

More than 10,000 people are feared to have lost their lives in the earthquake which struck on Saturday morning when Caroline was in the city of Chitwan – some four hours drive from Kathmandu – enjoying the last days of a trekking trip that finished her tour of south-east Asia and India.

By early Tuesday evening the 28-year-old primary school teacher from Birmingham was back with mum in Wigmore and so tired she fell asleep when they went to out to eat out at The Lion, Leintwardine.

“She never got as far as dessert,” said Sarah.

The pair enjoyed an emotional reunion at Birmingham International railway station late on Tuesday afternoon after Caroline’s 12- hour return flight.

Sarah says that she spent Sunday unable to move from the TV and its images showing where she knew Caroline was.

Caroline is still to hear from a friend who left Chitwan for the mountains on the day and has not been seen or heard from since.

“My story could have been so different,” says Caroline.

Falling pylons and the fear of live wires are Caroline’s most vivid recollection of the moment the quake struck.

“It was as if the ground had suddenly liquidised, it was dancing beneath your feet for about a minute,” said Caroline.

Chitwan with its mud buildings seemed to have escaped serious damage, but aftershocks rumbled on.

Caroline spent another night at her hotel then decided she had to strike out alone for Kathmandu along wrecked roads and through ruined towns in the hope of making her flight home.

“It was very difficult, the landscape seemed to have shifted, there was so much destruction, I was crossing bridges with no sides, huge trucks had toppled into valleys having spewed their loads all the way down, and dust, so much dust... it was like the end of the world,” she said.

Caroline estimates it took her around 7-8 hours by foot, bike or hitched rides, to reach “post-apocalyptic” Kathmandu, with the impact of the quake on communities ever more apparent.

She struggles to speak of what she saw there, survivors seemed to wander dazed through the ruins occasionally sent scuttling for shelter by aftershocks.

Caroline picked her way through the rubble, seeking shelter and sustenance where she could, to reach an aid camp.

The crucial message to mum was sent from a derelict hotel with a still functioning wi-fi connection running off a generator and just enough of a signal.

Sarah says she clung to every subsequent and equally brief message as surety that Caroline was not only alive but on her way.

After a 15-hour wait amongst airport queues that “snaked in tendrils” from every entrance, Caroline was in the air and headed home.

She’s already planning a return to Nepal within the next year, committing herself to aid causes in the meantime.

And Sarah is ready to let go.

“I don’t think I could stop her after what she’s been through,” she said.