Global response
Aid groups spring into action but may find it hard to reach victims.
The massive earthquake in Nepal and its frightening aftershocks have unleashed another force almost as overwhelming: an international relief effort that already is involving governments, charity groups and private volunteers from all corners of the globe.
The stricken nation of 28 million people faced shortages of shelter, electricity, food and clean drinking water after Saturday’s magnitude 7.8 earthquake, which killed more than 3,200 people, and the toll was expected to rise.
Aid workers were streaming in Sunday, along with cargo jets laden with supplies. But destroyed roads, overwhelmed hospitals and damaged communications networks will hinder the arrival of help. Reliable information is scarce, hampering aid agencies that must figure out where to send resources.
The extent of the devastation in Nepal has made it difficult to venture outside the stricken capital, Katmandu, to check the surrounding countryside for damage, said Craig Redmond, senior vice president of programs at Mercy Corps, a nonprofit global aid organization based in Portland, Ore., that has about 100 staff members in Nepal.
“In some of the outer cities, the secondary and tertiary cities, the numbers and assessments [for the earthquake damage] haven’t happened yet,” Redmond said. “Our teams are scrambling to get out there.”
Mercy Corps officials said workers were preparing survival kits with clean water, clothes, cooking utensils and hygiene supplies, along with shelter kits that will include tarps for survivors who no longer have safe spaces to sleep.
Although images of collapsed buildings in densely populated Katmandu have dominated news stories, the epicenter was about 50 miles to the northwest, where the extent of the crisis remains unknown.
“We are extremely concerned about the fate of communities in towns and villages in rural areas closer to the epicenter,” Jagan Chapagain, Asia Pacific director for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said in a statement. “Access roads have been damaged or blocked by landslides and communications lines are down, preventing us from reaching local Red Cross branches to get accurate information. We anticipate that there will be considerable destruction and loss of life.”
Almost a million children living in earthquake-afflicted areas will require immediate aid, according to UNICEF, the United Nations’ relief organization for children. U.N. officials said Sunday that hospitals were overflowing with patients and running out of medicine and places to store bodies.
The United States sent a military plane with a U.S. Agency for International Development disaster assistance response team, a search-and-rescue team, and 45 tons of cargo, the Pentagon said. California also was sending a searchand-rescue team, the governor’s office said.
But even getting to Nepal, which has just one international airport, is difficult.
“The number of flights has been severely restricted, so that’s been a challenge in getting people over there,” said Garrett Ingoglia, vice president of emergency response for AmeriCares, a nonprofit that delivers medical and humanitarian aid. “We have a team in India that we’re deploying.... They were actually on a flight last night, on the runway, on the plane, when one of the aftershocks occurred, so the flight got canceled.”
Even when AmeriCares’ aid efforts get going, he said, conditions in Nepal will be tough. “Nepal’s got bad roads, there aren’t a lot of helicopters and planes available to move products around, so we think it’s going to be a challenge,” Ingoglia said.
As numerous international aid organizations ramped up fundraising efforts, Ben Smilowitz, executive director of the Disaster Accountability Project, a nonprofit watchdog for aid groups, warned donors to be wary.
Watch out for organizations that promise immediate, lifesaving aid but that don’t have a history of operating in the country where they’re hoping to work, he said.
“This is going to be a very fluid process, and groups need to be called out on inaccurate and misrepresentative appeals,” said Smilowitz, whose Marylandbased group was founded after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. “It’s too late after an organization has raised $10, $20, $30 million; that organization already has that money, and that money may never end up in Nepal.”
Smilowitz added, “Donors can wait a week or two to donate.... They can stay tuned to see which organizations are showing up and which are being very opportunistic.”