Amanda Holden has revealed that her sister was trapped on Mount Everest after the earthquake in Nepal.

More than 3,500 people died after the devastating earthquake struck the country on Saturday.

Holden, who was interviewing search and rescue experts on ITV's This Morning, said: "My sister (Debbie) is climbing Mount Everest and very luckily she is at a place that is the last camp before you get to Base Camp 1 on the south side, and there was only four of them left at that camp because my sister was suffering so badly from altitude sickness she didn't walk up to Base Camp - which actually, potentially, might have saved her life."

She said her sister had been able to send a text message to her family from a friend's phone to say she was safe.

She said: "I think they rushed out when the earthquake came and rushed back in because they were affected by an avalanche partly at the camp they were in ... and I think they were going to make their way down this morning."

Holden said there was a possibility that her sister had been airlifted from the mountain this morning or could even have walked back down.

Medics and experts from the UK are in the country already and the UK International Search and Rescue team also dispatched crews destined for Kathmandu.

The Foreign Office said it had not received reports of any Britons being killed or injured but embassy staff had assisted 200 people.

A total of 90 British and Irish-born people are among the missing, according to a website set up for the families by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

In a message to Nepalese President Ram Baran Yadav, the Queen said today that she was "shocked to hear of the appalling loss of life and injuries" caused by the earthquake, adding that her "thoughts and prayers are with the victims".