A Birmingham couple are going back to the earthquake-struck region of Pakistan to help children return to school.

Lee and Frances Kuraishi were in the capital Islamabad when the quake struck two months ago, having travelled to the region to help set up an English language school.

Instead the couple, from Sutton Coldfield, found themselves tending to the wounded and counselling the bereaved.

Mr Kuraishi is a former Ofsted inspector and his wife is a PE and special needs teacher. They were sleeping at their hotel when the quake struck.

"We were woken up by people running out and shouting 'there's an earthquake'," said Mr Kuraishi.

"Ornaments and photographs on the mantel-piece started shattering. After a few seconds it stopped and we thought it was just a minor shake.

"After a little while we went for a walk and our daughter phoned from Chicago and asked if we knew there had been a big earthquake in Islamabad.

"We rushed back to our hotel to see what was happening. The news said the 12-storey Mangala Towers had come down, the main block in Islamabad, about half-a-mile away."

Acting on instinct, the couple jumped into a taxi to travel to a nearby evacuation area to see what they could do to help.

"We made our way round police cordons to the affected area. The devastation was beyond belief. People were trapped inside and rescuers were moving bricks and rubble with their hands," said Mr Kuraishi.

The next day the couple responded to a TV appeal for volunteers and were sent to work in a hospital commandeered for evacuees, cleaning wounds, changing dressings and counselling victims.

There were young children who had lost their families and did not know who they were and people who had lost limbs and livelihoods and were severely traumatised.

"It was very, very heartbreaking," said Mr Kuraishi. "We were under pressure but we had the privilege of moving away from it every evening."

The couple hit on a novel way to take victims' minds off their plight for a few minutes.

"A lot of them had not seen a photograph of themselves before so we would take a picture of them in the morning and get the photos developed in the afternoon, and have a little chat with them and try to find out what their difficulties were," said Mr Kuraishi.

With school buildings destroyed, 'tent schools' were set up to provide some vestige of ordinary life for the children.

About 7,000 teachers were killed in the earthquake, which registered 7.6 on the Richter scale, and most of the 'tent' teachers are not trained. The couple are returning to northern Pakistan for several months to volunteer.

"My wife has been asked to help with the training programme and I will be in a supporting role doing whatever I can," said Mr Kuraishi.

"These people's lives will take a long, long time to rebuild. Hospitals are saying 'go home' but there is nowhere for you to go if your home and livelihood have been destroyed. We want to do whatever we can."

The quake that struck close to Muzaffarabad on October 8 killed an estimated 87,000 people and destroyed the homes of 3.5 million people.