A primary school teacher travelling through Nepal has been found to be safe after the devastating earthquake hit the country.

Chloe Pincho, 27, a former teacher at Tweeddale Primary School, St Helier, was travelling through the Himalayan Annapurna region of Nepal with her boyfriend Brennan White, 28, from Melbourne, Australia, when the earthquake hit on Sunday.

The devastating 7.8 magnitude quake, which struck near the country's capital Kathmandu, is the worst in 80 years and has so far claimed more than 5,000 lives, with numbers expected to rise sharply in the upcoming days.

Miss Pincho had crossed into Nepal on Wednesday, April 22, and had been travelling across India with a number of friends after she left her teaching position at Tweeddale Primary School in February this year.

Miss Pincho’s father John Pincho, 64, of Welbeck Road, Carshalton, was informed by a friend of Chloe’s on Sunday she was safe, but he said until he heard her voice he remained racked with anxiety for her safety.

He said: “To make sure she was safe we phoned the Foreign Office and the Red Cross, but we heard nothing about Chloe from them and that didn’t help us at all.

“It wasn’t until I heard from her early on Tuesday that I felt OK.

“But even though I had been worried for those days deep inside me I knew she was all right.”

In her message to her father Miss Pincho said that she had not been in any real danger and that a lack of credit had prevented her from contacting him.

Even after knowing that her sister was safe Ceri Pincho, 25, said the family was still worried because she may have got caught up in the earthquake’s aftershocks.

She said: “After we heard that Chloe and Brennan were safe we were still worried because we heard about the aftershocks and that she might be near where they happened.

“We are hoping to speak to her this weekend and hear about what happened to her and where exactly she is now.

“There are so many other people who are still missing though, I’m just happy that we know she’s safe.”

The family is waiting to hear from Chloe later in the week to find out if she plans to continue travelling or will return home after the disaster.