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Three Chicago Travelers Return Home After Experiencing Nepal Earthquake Firsthand

(CBS) -- Three Chicagoans returned home from Nepal Sunday grateful to be alive after a deadly magnitude 7.9 earthquake hit the country.

CBS 2's Derrick Blakley was at O'Hare Airport Sunday when they arrived.

All three were enjoying the exotic vacation of a lifetime, a photo expedition to Nepal. But just as they were about to depart, they experienced the devastating earthquake, firsthand.

The relieved parents of 26-year-old Alex Gaulin enjoyed an emotional reunion after she and fellow photographers Dean Tatooles and Christopher Mundy, made it home on the last fight out of Kahtmandu after the quake.

The three enjoyed two weeks in India and Nepal, visiting the Taj Mahal and the Himalayas. Then, at the Kathmandu Airport waiting for takeoff, the earthquake struck.

"The plane started bouncing violently up and down," Tatooles said. "From what the captain told us, the wheels were off the ground. We looked out the window and the wings were bouncing, almost hitting the pavement and all the planes that were lined up, the same thing."

Chris Mundy helped lead the evacuation, but the terror wasn't over yet.

"The scariest time was after we evacuated the plane and we're sitting on the pavement for a at least an hour or two and right below you, you could just feel the pavement rocking beneath you," said Gaulin.

Those were aftershocks.

"Basically, the captain came up to us and said we have a 30 min window to fly out of here and then they're shutting the airport down," Tatooles said.

Their flight was the last to leave and all three are ecstatic to be back home.

"It was actually my first time out of the country," Gaulin said. "To go through this was just incredible."

Dean Tatooles said ancient temples, hundreds of years old, which their tour just visited are now gone, which means they took some of the last pictures of them intact.

But more than the buildings, they worry about the Nepalese people. They will need much more aid than the west has so far promised to even begin to recover.

Several local groups with ties to Nepal are beginning fundraising efforts here to help with the recovery there. The Nepali American Center has set up an earthquake relief fund and is accepting donations on its website.

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