THE SCENE IN NEPAL:
Chaos reigns as poor country copes with thousands of victims.
Shell-shocked and sleeping in the streets, tens of thousands of Nepalese braced against terrifying aftershocks Sunday while digging for survivors in the devastation wrought a day earlier by a massive earthquake that ripped across this nation and killed more than 2,500 people.
Acrid, white smoke rose above the nation’s most revered Hindu temple, where dozens of bodies were being cremated. Aid groups received the first word from remote mountain villages — reports that suggested many communities perched on mountainsides were 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 the quake was centred.
“Villages like this are routinely affected by landslides and it’s not uncommon for entire villages of 200, 300, up to 1,000 people to be completely buried by rockfalls,” said Matt Darvas, a member of the aid group World Vision. “It will likely be helicopter access only.”
Saturday’s magnitude 7.8 earthquake spread horror from Kathmandu to small villages and to the slopes of Mount Everest, triggering an avalanche that buried part of the base camp packed with foreign climbers preparing to make their summit attempts. At least 18 people died there and 61 were injured.
With people fearing more quakes, tens of thousands spent the day crowding in the streets.
Helicopter blades thudded periodically overhead. Crows screeched as the ground shook with the worst of the aftershocks — magnitude 6.7. Panicked residents raced outdoors.
“We don’t feel safe at all. There have been so many aftershocks. It doesn’t stop,” said Rajendra Dhungana, 34, who spent the day with his niece’s family for her cremation at the Pashuputi Nath Temple in Kathmandu.
“I’ve watched hundreds of bodies burn. I never thought I’d see so many … Nepal should learn a lesson from this. They should realize proper buildings should be built. There should be open spaces people can run to.”
Nepal authorities said Sunday that at least 2,430 people died in that country alone, not including the 18 dead in the avalanche. Another 61 people died from the quake in India and a few in other neighbouring countries. At least 1,152 people died in Kathmandu, and the number of injured nationwide was upward of 5,900.
With search-and-rescue efforts far from over, it was unclear how much the death toll would rise. Three policemen died during a rescue effort in Kathmandu, police spokesman Komal Singh Bam said.
The capital city is largely a collection of small, poorly constructed brick apartment buildings. But outside of the oldest neighbourhoods, many in Kathmandu were surprised by how few modern structures collapsed in the quake. While aid workers cautioned that many buildings could have sustained serious structural damage, it was also clear the death toll would have been far higher had more buildings caved in. Aid workers also warned that the situation could be far worse near the epicentre. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was centred near Lamjung, about 80 kilometres northwest of Kathmandu.
As planeloads of supplies, doctors and relief workers arrived from neighbouring countries, journalists reported on social media that aftershocks forced some aircraft to circle the Kathmandu airport while waiting to land.
The earthquake was the worst to hit the South Asian nation in more than 80 years. It destroyed swaths of the oldest neighbourhoods of Kathmandu and was strong enough to be felt all across parts of India, Bangladesh, China’s region of Tibet and Pakistan.
Nepal’s worst recorded earthquake in 1934 measured 8.0 and all but destroyed the cities of Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Patan.
Rescuers aided by international teams spent Sunday digging through rubble of buildings — concrete slabs, bricks, iron beams, wood — to look for survivors. Because the air was filled with chalky, concrete dust, many people wore breathing masks or held shawls over their faces.
Hundreds of people in the Kalanki neighbourhood nervously watched the progress of a single backhoe digging into the rubble of the Lumbini Guest House, once a three-storey budget hotel.
Police officer RP Dhamala, who was co-ordinating the rescue efforts, said they had already pulled out 12 people alive and six dead. He said rescuers were still searching for about 20 people believed to be trapped but had heard no cries, taps or noises for a while.
The United Nations said hospitals in the Kathmandu Valley were overcrowded and running out of emergency supplies and space to store corpses. The quake will probably put a huge strain on the res ources of this impoverished country best known for Everest, the highest mountain in the world. The economy of Nepal, a nation of 27.8 million people, relies heavily on tourism, principally trekking and mountain climbing.
Countries sending support Sunday included India, Canada, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Germany and France.