Toll still rising
As the death toll from Nepal’s massive earthquake passed 4200 yesterday, survivors of the disaster in the capital struggled to cope with shortages of electricity, petrol, water, cash and sanitary facilities. Phone and Internet links remained spotty at best.
How many more victims of the tragedy remained to be discovered was unclear, though Nepalese authorities estimated that the number of dead could surpass 8000 and said the tally of injured stood at more than 7500.
Forty-eight hours after the huge quake, rescue and relief workers had yet to reach numerous remote mountain villages. Reports trickling in from some hamlets suggested that in some areas, 70 per cent or more of the homes had been reduced to heaps of rubble.
Schools remained closed, most businesses were shuttered, banks were not open, and ATMs lacked electricity to dispense cash. Long lines of motorcycles and cars queued for fuel.
Nepal is prone to earthquakes but Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat acknowledged that the government wasn’t prepared to respond to a disaster of this scale.
‘‘Our system wasn’t prepared to fix a problem of this magnitude, but the government is doing the best it can with the resources on our disposal,’’ he said. ‘‘All our helicopters are occupied with the rescue, so it is difficult to fly the relief materials to remote areas.’’
Chief Secretary Leela Mani Paudel said that Nepal urgently needs tents, medical teams specialised in orthopaedics and collapsed-structure rescue and search teams.
Minister of Information Minendra Rijal said 308 people had been rescued by helicopters, and that authorities were trying to send more helicopters into remote areas.
Sanjeev Bikram Rana, executive director of the Katmandu Water Supply Management Board, said the entire Katmandu Valley was reeling under drinking water shortages due to power cuts and severe damage to pipes.
‘‘We are now working with private water tankers to mobilize our resources in providing safe drinking water to people who have been taking refuge in the open areas around the valley,’’ he said.
Although aid workers are able to reach the district, some remote villages are only accessible by foot and landslides have blocked the way, said Sanjay Karki, the Nepal country director for the Portland, Ore.-based Mercy Corps.
‘‘Some you need to walk two days, some hours to get to,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s high hills, with very difficult geographical terrain.’’
Government authorities said nearly the entire 100,000-soldier army was involved in rescue and relief operations.
In Kathmandu, thousands of people whose homes were destroyed or damaged — or were simply too afraid to return home amid continuing aftershocks — camped out at Tudikhel, a wide expanse of green land in the centre of the capital city.
Others had erected canopies along sidewalks or set up tarpaulins in traffic circles to shade themselves from the intense heat and sporadic rainfall.
Soldiers were distributing drinking water to long lines of evacuees in Tudikhel, as families sat in loose circles on blankets, chatting and selling snacks.
Prashant Singh, 15, dressed in a dirtcaked soccer jersey, said his family relocated to the park on Saturday evening.
Fears of aftershocks spread through his housing complex in the city centre.