India on Tuesday stepped up its rescue and relief efforts in earthquake-ravaged Nepal with rescue teams fanning out in remote and inaccessible areas, even as it began a massive evacuation efforts via roads.4,000 people are scheduled to reach India late on Tuesday.
Army and National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) teams are now reaching villages in the vicinity of Barpak, the epicenter of earthquake, looking for survivors and evacuating them to safer places through IAF planes.
The rescue efforts got a boost when an AN-32 transport plane of IAF managed to land at Pokhara which is close to the epicenter and helicopters flew sorties to the affected areas outside Kathmandu , Defence Secretary RK Mathur said.
Foreign Secretary SJaishankar said a “big movement by roads” has been initiated and in the first phase 4,000 Indians in 80 buses will be reaching India by Tuesday night. The buses, after crossing the Indo-Nepal border, will terminate at Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh.
“The bus route is probably the best route to come back home and we have made arrangements for the same along the border on the Indian side,” he said. The nearly 290 km road from Gorakhpur to Pokhara was made operational by Army engineers after it was damaged due to quake.
The two secretaries, along with Home Secretary lC Goyal, said “a few more” rescue and relief flights have taken to the air today even as a number of buses and trucks carrying loads of relief material reached Kathmandu and after dropping these, picked up passengers on their Mentioning about Indian casualties, the Foreign Secretary said bodies of six tourists from Assam were been handed over to their family members while seven more fatalities are feared adding 12 Indians were rescued by the Nepalese Army from Tamakoshi area.
Goyal said in India, 75 casualties and 450 injuries were reported till now from affected states in the aftermath of the earthquake that hit the country and Nepal last Saturday. “The maximum casualties of 58 have taken place in Bihar. No assistance has been sought by any other quake-affected state from the Centre till now. However, NDRF teams are working at these locations,” he said.
The Indian doctors are now embedded in some Nepal hospitals to provide medical aid and perform surgeries. and had performed 65 surgeries, treated more than 540 trauma cases and provided first aid to nearly 2,000 people. Besides, the Army had also set up a 45-bed hospital on the outskirts of Kathmandu and more medicines and personnel rushed to Barpak. The Navy has also flown a team of doctors to Nepal to assist in providing medical aid.
Even as evacuation of people from ravaged villages by helicopters are on, the Indian Army along with NDRF have managed to restore power supply to many parts of Kathmandu.
After the repair of highways connecting neighbouring Uttar Pradesh and Bihar with Kathmandu, rescue and relief is now on via these routes while specialized engineer task forces are concentrating on clearing roads and rebuilding them in far flung villages of Nepal. In fact, Army engineers cleared a road near Narainpur in the outskirts of Kathmandu after it was hit by a landslide on Tuesday morning.
Giving details of ongoing rescue mission named Operation Maitri, additional director general Military Operations(DGMO) Major General Ranbir Singh said here on Tuesday, while one medical team was providing succor to victims at village Barpak, epicenter of the earthquake, three field hospitals were operating in Kathmandu, Pokhara and areas around it.
Since the epicenter is close to Pokhara, the Army and IAF have set up a helicopter base there and stationed more than 12 helicopters, Singh said adding more than 5,500 people were evacuated to safer places from nearby flattened villages now cut off due to damaged roads.
He said the armed forces in the next two days or so will deliver 10,000 blankets, 1,000 tents and an equal number of tarpaulins and plastic sheets adding so far approximately 3,000 blankets and 100 tents were sent to affected areas. Also 41 tons of water, 22 tonnes of cooked food and dry ration were so far airlifted to Nepal and 25 food and water vehicles were diverted to Sindhupal Chowk near Kathmandu.
Meanwhile, six more teams of NDRF personnel were pressed into its relief and rescue operations thereby taking its strength to 16 with ten teams already engaged in rescue since last Saturday when earthquake struck. One team of NDRF has 45 highly trained personnel.
India has evacuated 170 persons of 15 countries including the US, the UK, Russia and Germany, External Affairs Ministry said. The foreign evacuees include four people from Brazil, 20 from Czech Republic, five from France, eight from Germany, 33 from Poland, two each from Russia and South Africa, 71 from Spain, one from Switzerland, four from Tanzania, three from the UK, five from Ukraine and 10 from the US.