THE Wokingham schoolgirls who had to be rescued by the Indian Army on the day their food was running out have returned to the UK safely to talk about their experiences.

The girls flew home on two separate flights, with half of them arriving late on Wednesday, the day before their A Level results were due.

The army praised the girls' quick thinking saying if they hadn't built an S.O.S. sign out of rocks they wouldn't have been found for days.

Jessica Warren, 17, was on the first flight home, which touched down at London Heathrow on Tuesday evening.

She said: "We were told we may get a helicopter but we didn't think we'd get one. We made an S.O.S. sign out of the rocks. When we got back the pilots asked whose idea it was to build the sign.

"They said they probably wouldn't have found us for two more days. They weren't even looking for us when they found us."

She said the pilots were searching for a French woman who went missing in the region when they came across the girls. The French woman was later found and rescued.

Hubbah Choudry, 16, was one of the girls rescued on the second flight back to the UK. She said the girls were playing cards when the first helicopter arrived.

"We ran out and waved," she said. "Our trek leader was shouting 'go pack your bag quickly.'

"We ran up and were pulled into the helicopters in twos. We were flown back to the army base and we were waiting there for two other helicopters after us but we realised the of the group wouldn't come today.

"The army were interrogating us quite a bit asking whether we needed the helicopter, why we were there and was it necessary for us to be there."

The girls said they were running low on packed food but they were sheltering with a family with an allotment so could buy more food if they had to.

The group of 20 students trekking through the Himalayas were air-lifted to safety by the Indian Army after torrential rain caused landslides and floods, leaving them trapped in a remote mountain valley.

Keniesha Mills, a business study teacher at the school was one of two members of staff on the trip.
She said; "I think generally I was in control. I was dealing with the situation at hand then I could panic afterwards. We had to run for out lives from a hail storm and mud and rock slides.

"Adventure Lifesigns [the company who organised the trek] were amazing, excellent." She said the group were safe and were given the chance to talk to their parents when they could.