Southampton nurse returns after helping Morocco earthquake victims

A nurse has returned to the UK after spending 12 days trying to help the victims of the devastating earthquake in Morocco.

Sarah McBride, 40, from Southampton, was among a group of volunteers from the Wiltshire-based charity REACT.

The team flew out to help with the relief efforts in any way they could.

Ms McBride described the effects of the earthquake as "devastating" and "quite a hard sight to see".

The 6.9-magnitude quake struck on 8 September at 23:00 local time killing nearly 3,000 people and injuring thousands more.

Ms McBride, who spent time in Afghanistan, Iraq and Sierra Leone during a 23-year career in the military, left the forces last year to work as a nurse.

She went out to Morocco to help the wounded and to build whatever was needed.

She said: "We saw villages that were completely devastated... 100% collapse of buildings, there have been deaths and it's quite a hard sight to see.

"The lack of sanitation is just asking for disease, getting emergency sanitation and sorting out basic things like hand-washing that was one of our key concerns."

In her medical work she helped to rehydrate week-old twins who were in danger of becoming seriously ill.

Ms McBride said: "I helped a mother with her twins, we chatted through an interpreter and she was so grateful for the help but being a mother myself, it really hit home."

Ms McBride will be back at work nursing in Southampton on Monday proud of the difference her team made in Morocco.

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