Nepal earthquake: Happy List hero inspires people to return the help he showed them

Ravi Singh of charity Khalsa Aid has encouraged a Somerset landlord he helped in 2014 to fly to Nepal to help with the relief effort

A Somerset pub landlord who was helped by Ravi Singh, one of last year’s Happy Listers, has flown to Nepal to return the help he was shown.

Ravi, who founded the Sikh humanitarian charity Khalsa Aid in 1999, became a hero in Somerset during the flood crisis of 2013-14 when he spent two months rescuing villagers and salvaging belongings in the worst affected areas.

At that time Ravi struck up a friendship with Jim Winkworth, the landlord of the King Alfred pub in Burrowbridge, which was turned into a community refuge centre. Now Jim is leaving his bar behind to join the Khalsa Aid team of Sikh volunteer aid workers in Kathmandu.

"I've been in touch with Ravi ever since he got there, and he asked me to come," said Mr Winkworth. "He said it's a bad situation, and it must be horrific, because he's seen a lot of terrible situations in his time, so I'm preparing for the worst."

"I'm quite good at delegating and organising people and Ravi said he asked me because lots of people are running around with no real strategy. He also knows I'm a pretty useful digger driver and apparently they are crying out for people who can work machinery. I'll help any way I can," he added.

More than 6,600 people were killed and 14,025 injured by the magnitude-7.8 earthquake, which struck on 25 April. Authorities in Nepal have ruled out the possibility of finding further survivors.

Mr Winkworth, who is travelling out with a plane-load of aid collected in Somerset, said he expected to be out in Kathmandu for between ten days and a fortnight. Khalsa Aid’s aid mission has already distributed 5,000 face masks to try to stop the spread of diseases in the earthquake-hit country, as well as food, sleeping mats and ground sheets to those left homeless.

Nepal is still in desperate need of supplies and has renewed its appeal to international donors for tents, tarpaulins, grain, salt and sugar.