A North Yorkshire rescuer was one of the team which pulled a man alive from the rubble of a block of flats in India - just minutes before they were to send in the bulldozers.

Ray Gray, a 44-year-old father-of-two, from Selby, was one of the team which saved Viral Dalal, 24, who was sleeping when the 7.9-magnitude earthquake toppled the building on Friday, encasing him in a space less than a foot high.

The astonished British rescuers, who had all but given up hope of finding anyone alive in the building, pulled him out last night.

Six members of his family remain entombed in the rubble surrounding Sahajanand Tower in an affluent suburb of Bhuj.

"There wasn't a scratch on him," said Mr Gray. "He looked like he'd just popped out to the shops.

"We put him in an ambulance, but he jumped out and started drawing us a map of his apartment," he added, describing how Dalal wanted to help them find his family.

Dalal was rescued when neighbours reported hearing a voice from the ruins. Teams with sniffer dogs had already searched the building and found no signs of life. It took rescue workers using crowbars and bolt-cutters several hours to reach the trapped man.

His mother, father, one-year-old nephew and three other family members were still inside the building today.

Residents say 70 to 80 of their neighbours in the building are missing. But Dalal's miracle rescue will be one of the last in Bhuj, where the focus of emergency work has now switched from finding survivors to recovering the dead.

International rescue teams will be leaving within the next day or two, according to Mike Thomas, team leader for the British search and rescue group.

"We're just going through the area with sniffer dogs one more time before turning it over to the army to bulldoze," said Mr Thomas, team leader.

Scotland Yard has opened a special "casualty bureau" staffed by 60 civilians and police officers for anyone seeking information about the dead and injured in India.

Relatives seeking information are asked to call 020 7839 1010.

Updated: 14:26 Wednesday, January 31, 2001