EARTHQUAKE heroine Julie Ryan has returned to Britain after a week of rescue efforts in Pakistan.

The 38-year-old helped to save three children and assisted in the recovery of countless bodies as part of a team from the International Rescue Corps (IRC).

At her home in Welburn, near Malton, North Yorkshire, she relived the moments when the team found living victims buried in the rubble.

The first time was in Muzaffarabad, near the epicentre of the quake.

"We were told somebody had heard something from under a pile of rubble and went to investigate," she said.

"One of our team, Willie McMartin, from Scotland, put his hand into a hole with his torch - and another little hand grabbed the torch.

"It was a little 14-year-old boy and we proceeded to dig him out. It took about half an hour to get him free. He was covered with dust but otherwise fine."

That was on the Monday. On the Wednesday Ms Ryan and her team, which also included Sheena McCabe from York, were flown by helicopter to the mountain village of Kahori, 10km away.

A religious school had been crushed by the quake and voices had been heard from under the rubble.

"I put my head in a hole and shouted out hello - and this voice, as clear as day, shouted back. There were two boys and they had been entombed on their beds for five days."

With the help of a German dog team the boys, aged 14 and 16, were rescued in a three-hour operation.

One of them had lain beside the remains of his brother throughout the ordeal and was covered with his blood.

But not all the rescue attempts were successful.

On their first day, the team members were taken to a school that had collapsed.

Of the 700 children on the school roll, only 200 had been accounted for and the rescuers immediately started searching for signs of life.

One rescuer - Ray Gray, from Beverley, near Hull, whose son, Stuart was killed in a motorbike crash in North Yorkshire three weeks ago - had to be pulled out of the rubble by his feet when an aftershock hit.

"We were finding body after body in what was left of that school, but no one who was alive," said Ms Ryan.

* Rescuers yesterday pulled a baby alive from the rubble of her home in the village of Sanger, in Pakistan, eight days after the earthquake struck.

The girl's brothers, aged seven and nine, led soldiers to the house where she was trapped.

The boys, who were carrying another baby sister, had arrived at an army camp on Saturday to ask for help.