Nepalese Colorado College students trying to help their homeland

When Anubrat Prasai's mother tried to flee her home in Kathmandu last week, the ground shook so hard she could barely stand up straight.

But she managed to escape and flee to a nearby field, where she and some of Prasai's neighbors and relatives have been camped for days.

They've waited there as aftershocks hit the Nepalese capital that was ravaged last week by the worst earthquake the country has seen in 80 years.

Prasai, 22, was safe in Colorado Springs at Colorado College, where he learned through texts and Facebook messages Friday night that his country had been wracked by a 7.8-magnitude earthquake that has claimed more than 4,200 lives and injured more than 7,000 people.

Prasai and four other Nepali CC students are fortunate - their families escaped the quake unharmed, although the damage to their city and country is severe. They have been communicating with relatives over Skype, which has waived fees for calls to Nepal, Prasai said. From halfway around the world, there is little that Prasai can do but to organize efforts to donate money to the recovery effort.

Prasai's home is standing, but photos show the family's glassware was shattered. His aunt's house now leans against another home, he said on Monday. It's only a matter of time before the house will come down.

"They have been calling the cranes," Prasai said. "But the cranes are really busy, so we still don't know what's going to happen."

Reconstructing thousands of destroyed homes will be a struggle, he said.

"There is no such thing as house insurance in Nepal," Prasai said. "Their home, that's their entire life's savings."

While rebuilding homes for thousands is a task that looms, Prasai is more concerned about immediate needs - food, water and shelter for those made homeless by the quake. Prasai and other CC students have connected with Nepalese college students around the United States to find ways to help their families.

Youth With A Mission, an international nonprofit group with a campus in Colorado Springs, supplies volunteers to two organizations working to prevent human trafficking in Nepal.

All 20 volunteers, most of them Americans, survived the quake, said YWAM director Scott Homan.

The group is focused on getting basic survival needs to the Nepalese.

The volunteers have started trekking to the villages outside Kathmandu, where Homan heard that 90 percent of the homes in many villages have been destroyed. The group is accepting donations, with money going toward emergency relief such as clean water.

"Almost all of the money - some of it might be going for petrol and generators - but most is going to relief efforts at this point," he said.

Another Colorado Springs nonprofit, ServeNow, which supplies money to prevent human trafficking in Nepal, is buying tents for homeless Nepalis, said ServeNow President Lars Dunberg. The group also hopes to direct aid to the villages outside Kathmandu, which have received little help.

Marshaling money for Nepal became a consolation for CC sophomore Niyanta Khatri, who hadn't heard from her family for hours after the first reports of the earthquake.

Khatri and some of her high school friends raised more than $9,000 over the weekend - and Khatri got a text from her parents that they were safe.

She hopes to organize a showing of Nepali photographs over the weekend to help raise money and awareness about the quake. "Every single dollar holds so much value for someone from Nepal," Khatri said.