Canada sending more aid as quake’s toll tops 4,000,
World travellers safe but shaken by earthquake’s wrath on mountainous region
Six months ago, Jessica Adach quit her job to travel the world and climb Mount Everest with her boyfriend.
The 28-year-old NGO worker from Toronto had always dreamed of going to the base of Everest, her mother Susan Adach told the Star.
“This has always been kind of a bucket-list thing for her, a life goal,” she said.
But Jessica’s elation after reaching Everest’s base camp was quickly replaced by fear as a 7.8 magnitude earthquake began to rip the ground beneath her feet.
Now safely out of the country, it’s the people she left behind that will keep her up at night.
“I feel really badly leaving the people and the country behind after having the absolutely euphoric experience of trekking up to base camp of Mount Everest and just feeling on top of the world,” Jessica told her mother after making it onto an Abu Dhabi-bound plane at Kathmandu Airport.
Every year, thousands of Canadians visit Nepal. They’re drawn to the historic capital of Kathmandu, the soaring heights of Everest and the region’s famous Annapurna mountain range.
Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs said 462 Canadians are registered with Ottawa as travelling in the region, though the number could be higher since registration is voluntary. For an unknown number of them, their trips have been cut short, and family members back home are left wondering about their safety.
Ted and Barbara Lea’s trip to Nepal was meant to be a chance to explore and sketch the country’s historic landmarks and lush landscapes. By Saturday, the Toronto couple was sleeping on a wooden platform with a tarp over their heads. The Leas — who are both around 70, according to family — are now in a camp with about a thousand other displaced people near the northeastern border with Tibet, family members say.
For 22-year-old Casey Blustein, hiking through Nepal’s Annapurna Circuit was just a pit stop on his months-long backpacking trip around the world. Now, rather than heading to meet a friend in India, the recent Queen’s University graduate is camping out with hundreds of oth- ers in Manang, north of the Annapurna mountain range in central Nepal.
“I don’t yet believe he has a sense or real appreciation of (the devastation,)” Casey’s father, Gary Blustein, said.
Along with the staggering loss of life, that devastation includes numerous buildings and landmarks central to one of the country’s largest industries — tourism — which brought in nearly 800,000 people to Nepal in 2013, a boon for the poor nation with about a quarter of its population below the poverty line.
The number of Canadians travelling to Nepal each year has been on the rise, from around 3,700 in 2002 to over 13,000 a decade later, according to numbers from Nepal’s tourism ministry.
But the immense destruction of culture and architecture could prove to be a setback for Nepal’s government. The Dharahara tower, offering sweeping views of Kathmandu, is now rubble, while buildings throughout the city’s Durbar Square are crumbling. Elsewhere in the country, various religious temples have been damaged or collapsed entirely during the earthquake.
Amid the devastation throughout the country, families in Canada may have a better sense of the situation than those on the ground in Nepal, Blustein said, given the limited Internet access.
Jessica Adach was able to email back and forth with her parents until her connection cut out on Saturday evening. On Sunday, Susan got a call from her daughter — she and boyfriend Michael Salenieks were at the airport.
Susan Adach said the couple would continue on their worldwide adventure until they returned to Toronto in June.
“It’s kind of a miracle really, because they’re going to be one of the last people who saw Kathmandu in its lovely state,” Susan said. “They saw all of that in its glory. It’s bittersweet for sure.”