Usually around my room there are hundreds of birds every morning, in the back garden and on the fence. The silence was really noticeable, but after some time I didn't think anymore of it.

I first came to Nepal in the 1980s and like many tourists then, I came here for a month and ended up staying for a couple of years.

At the end of 2013, I started working at the International Buddhist Academy and since then I have job shared with another Australian - one of us travelled to Australia while the other one ran the office and taught some classes.

I usually walk across the fields to a friend's place for lunch on Saturday's, but this day I could not get in contact with them.

We were also going out to lunch at the Hyatt for brunch and a swim, but the weather was so unseasonably cold we decided to cancel that as well.

About five minutes to noon, we lined up for lunch and heard this incredible noise.

I initially thought it was a very low plane, as it was as loud as a 747 about to land on the house. Then someone screamed run.

A massive feeling of waves of energy started to come through the ground.

The dining room doors opened onto a huge basketball court and we were able to run out to the basketball court and sit down while earthquake continued.

I remember clearly as I ran out the door looking at a four-storey building over the fence lift into the air and drop down with a tilt to the right.

The energy was so strong it was not possible to stand up.

As we sat and watched buildings swaying, the entire contents of a water tank fell over the top of one of our buildings.

We were looking all around in case one of the buildings started to fall.

It was absolutely terrifying as the noise and the vibration made us wonder if we could survive. Probably the main thing that saved us all was being in the line in the dining room and able to rush out onto the court.

We could see massive damage to our buildings, with walls ripped out of our library building, windows broken, the dormitory wing badly damaged, and the entrance gate split from its frame. My room and office were so badly damaged it wasn't possible to return to them to sleep or work.

Since the big quakes, the ground has continued to shake non-stop and as you sit or stand you can feel the shudders and vibrations. A couple of times there have been bigger tremors which have loosened more of the buildings, causing them to crash to the ground.

We had no power, no internet and no phone for three days and it was unsafe to leave the compound. We were unable to contact family and friends to let them know we were OK.

Afterwards, we expected the authorities or aid organisations to knock on each door in a couple of days and check that residents were safe and see whether they needed tents or food packages. In our case, I have been trying to find 20 dome tens to house the monks and staff since the earthquake but no one has any left.

No one from the authorities or aid organisations has been near us - and we are a large complex - to find out whether we are OK or if we need anything. It seems that the damage has been so massive in the rural areas they can't manage to reach them, so it's unlikely they can also check the city areas.

The papers have been full of stories of people receiving no aid or help at least a week after the earthquake. The International Buddhist Academy monks have been going out on rescue work each day and have come back with horror stories of entire villages flattened and everyone living there deceased. They say our situation is very good compared with the hopeless situation for local people.

The major problem for the whole of Nepal is that monsoon season begins in early June, with heavy rain each day until September.

Most of the earthquake victims are still living under plastic sheets strung across poles with no tents or medicine or sufficient food to sustain them. Many of the roads have been damaged by landslides making it difficult to reach the mountainous villages.

The sky has been full of massive planes carrying cargo but the government has stopped the heavy cargo flights as the runway, the only international runway in Nepal, has started to crack. Once this goes, there can be no flights in and out of Nepal.

Every day we are busy with making breakfast, getting the monks ready to leave to do rescue work, keeping the place scrupulously clean, administering first aid, putting through mountains of washing again to keep everyone clean and minimise disease, monitoring the buildings and cordoning them off, helping students keep in touch with their families and continuing with the many administrative tasks which still need to be done.

We do not know the future for International Buddhist Academy or for Nepal as the damage is massive. Tourism is a main source of income but many of the monuments and trekking trails have been badly damaged so the local people will be hurt hard without the tourism income.

We also feel incredibly lucky to have survived - more than 100 foreign tourists are still missing and many more are known to have lost their lives. The official death toll of locals is about 7500, but this is expected to be much higher, as many villages have not been reached.

The best way to help Nepal is by donating funds to a reliable organisation as it is money the local people need to rent new houses, and buy food and clothing and the many items needed to make a new home.