Two days after the devastating earthquake, crisis loomed over quake-hit Nepal on Monday following the shortage of food, water, electricity and medicines as fear drove tens of thousands of people out into the open and the death toll soared to 4,000 amid fears that it could touch 5,000. The shortage of electricity since the Saturday temblor, the worst to hit Nepal after 1934, has compounded the crisis.
Shelter, fuel, food, medicine, power, news, workers — Nepal’s earthquake-hit capital was short on everything on Monday as its people searched for their loved ones, sorted through rubble for their belongings and struggled to provide for their families’ needs. In much of the countryside, it was worse, though how much worse was only beginning to become apparent. According some patchy reports that have filtered through by words of mouth, some of the entire villages have been either flattened by the quake or engulfed by landslides.
Reports received so far by aid groups suggest that many communities perched on mountainsides are devastated or struggling to cope. landslides hindered rescue teams that tried to use mountain trails to reach those in need, said Prakash Subedi, chief district official in the Gorkha region, where Saturday’s magnitude 7.9 quake was centred. Another top official of the region, Udav Prashad Timalsina, said he was in desperate need of help. “There are people who are not getting food and shelter. I have had reports of villages where 70 per cent of the houses have been destroyed,” he said.
Aid group World Vision said its staff members were able to reach Gorkha, but gathering information from the villages remained a challenge. Even when roads are clear, the group said, some remote areas can be three days’ walk from Gorkha’s main disaster centre.
Some roads and trails have been blocked by landslides, the group said in an email to the Associated Press. “In those villages that have been reached, the immediate needs are great, including the need for search and rescue, food items, blankets and tarps, and medical treatment,” it added.
There is palpable fear on the streets of Kathmandu. Groups of residents — women and children in particular —huddle in small groups on pavements and in grounds, afraid to return to their homes because of continuing and frightening aftershocks.
Most are exchanging notes on what has hit Nepal. A few are cooking meals or making tea in the open. “There is no way I am going back to my house,” said a young mother who gave her name as Kalpana. “I cannot get over what happened on Saturday. I will stay put outside till I know for sure that we are safe.”
A couple told IANS how their house shook violently when the 7.9 magnitude earthquake ravaged Nepal on Saturday, throwing one of them off the bed. “We have run out of money,” a woman said, adding, “We are waiting for IAF.” Many ATMs in the capital have been crippled by the quake.
Unconfirmed reports claimed that some of the villages have been levelled by the quake or engulfed by landslides. “Some of the initial surveys that we are hearing of from the zones closer to the epicentre talk about total or near total destruction,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, director of the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance for the US Agency for International Development.
Chaos prevailed at Nepal’s only international airport with hundreds waiting to be evacuated from the earthquake-ravaged country as India and other nations scurried to bring back their panic-stricken citizens.
While 2,500 people have been evacuated so far, scores of people, largely Indians were lined up at the Tribhuvan International Airport to board commercial and special defence aircraft to return home.
Nepal’s Prime Minister Sushil Koirala admitted on Monday that the relief and rescue efforts were not “effective”. The “rescue, relief and search operations have not been effective”, Koirala told a meeting of political parties here, and urged the ruling and the opposition to work together “in this national crisis”.
The Nepal Government urgently needs tents, dry food, mattresses, medicines and other basic essentials to distribute to its people who are in dire need of relief and support after Saturday’s major earthquake and Sunday’s aftershocks, a senior official said here on Monday.
At a press conference in capital Kathmandu, Nepal Chief Secretary leela Mani Paudyal said the Government has requested India, China and other foreign countries to provide more assistance to Nepal, Xinhua news agency reported.
“We are not able to distribute enough drinking water, dry food, mattresses, and medicines to the earthquake victims in such a difficult situation,” the chief secretary said, adding that the Government was doing its best to conduct rescue operations with speed.