Nepali police team finds bodies of foreign trekkers, villagers

KATHMANDU — A Nepali police team has pulled out the bodies of about 50 people, including some foreign trekkers, from an avalanche-hit area, officials said on Sunday, as the death toll from last month’s devastating earthquake climbed to over 7,000.

None of the bodies have been identified, said Pravin Pokharel, deputy superintendent of police in the northern district of Rasuwa. Mr. Pokharel, who led the police team, said the bodies were pulled out on Saturday, a week after the earthquake, and rescuers would return to the remote area on Sunday.

At least 200 other people are still missing in the area, including villagers and trekkers, said Uddhav Bhattarai, the senior-most bureaucrat in the district.

“We had not been able to reach the area earlier because of rains and cloudy weather,” he said by telephone.

The government said the death toll from the earthquake has reached 7,040 and the number of injured was 14,123.

US military aircraft and personnel were due to arrive in Nepal on Sunday, a day later than expected, to help ferry relief supplies to stricken areas outside the capital Kathmandu, a US Marines spokeswoman said.

Marine Brigadier General Paul Kennedy has said the delayed US contingent included at least 100 US soldiers, lifting equipment and six military aircraft, two of them helicopters.

The team arrives as criticism mounted over a pileup of relief material at Kathmandu airport, the only international gateway to the Himalayan nation, because of customs inspections.

United Nations ( UN) Resident Representative Jamie McGoldrick said the government must loosen its normal customs restrictions to deal with the in- creasing flow of relief material pouring in from abroad.

But the government, complaining it has received unneeded supplies such as tuna and mayonnaise, insisted its customs agents had to check all emergency shipments.

“They should not be using peacetime customs methodology,” the UN’s Mr. McGoldrick said. Instead, he argued, all relief material should get a blanket exemption from checks on arrival.

Mr. Kennedy also warned against bottlenecks at Kathmandu airport, saying: “What you don’t want to do is build up a mountain of supplies” that block space for planes or more supplies.

Nepal lifted import taxes on tarpaulins and tents on Friday but a home ministry spokesman, Laxmi Prasad Dhakal, said all goods coming in from overseas had to be inspected. “This is something we need to do,” he said.

Nepali government officials have said efforts to step up the pace of delivery of relief material to remote areas were also frustrated by a shortage of supply trucks and drivers, many of whom had returned to their villages to help their families.

“Our granaries are full and we have ample food stock, but we are not able to transport supplies at a faster pace,” said Shrimani Raj Khanal, a manager at the Nepal Food Corp.

Army helicopters have airdropped instant noodles and biscuits to remote communities but people need rice and other ingredients to cook a proper meal, he said.

RUNWAY

Planes loaded with relief supplies from around the world were pouring into landlocked Nepal, but there have been numerous reports of many getting stuck at Kathmandu’s small international airport.

The manager of Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport said very heavy planes were being barred from landing because of concerns about the condition of the single runway after the quake and a series of strong aftershocks.

“We have issued a notice saying that aircraft with a total weight exceeding 196 tons will not be allowed to land at Kathmandu airport,” Birendra Prasad Shrestha told AFP.

“There are no visible cracks in the runway but there have been so many tremors recently that we have to take precautions — we don’t know what’s happening below the surface.

“This runway is the only lifeline for Kathmandu — if it goes, everything goes.”

MONSOON AND DISEASE

The exact scale of the disaster was still to emerge, with the mountainous terrain in the vast Himalayan nation complicating the relief effort.

With relief workers still to reach many areas, the Red Cross has warned of “total devastation” in far- flung areas, including in the hardest-hit Sindhupalchowk region, northeast of Kathmandu, where whole villages have been destroyed.

The latest UN’s situation report says teams that have arrived in another devastated district, Gorkha, have discovered a “dire need for shelter, particularly tents and blankets.”

“Access to some remote villages remains a key challenge as many landing zones are unsafe due to debris, altitude and current weather conditions,” the report also says.

“Road access is limited. Some remote villages can only be accessed by helicopters.”

In Kathmandu, tens of thousands of survivors have been living out in the open in the eight days since the quake, having either lost their homes or fearful that aftershocks could bring teetering buildings to the ground. Tents have been pitched in Kathmandu’s main sports stadium and on its golf course.

The UN says more than 160,000 homes have been destroyed and another 143,000 damaged.

The UN said eight million of Nepal’s 28 million people were affected, with at least two million needing tents, water, food and medicines over the next three months.

Although multiple teams of rescuers from more than 20 countries have been using sniffer dogs and heat- seeking equipment to find survivors in the rubble, no one has been pulled out alive since Thursday evening.

“Rescue operations are still under way, but focus has shifted to providing relief,” home ministry spokesman Laxmi Prasad Dhakal told AFP on Sunday.

“Many far flung villages have been affected,” he said.

The top priorities now are getting aid and shelter to people before the monsoon season starts within weeks and adds to the difficulty in distributing relief supplies, World Food Programme Executive Director Ertharin Cousin told Reuters.

“Our fear is the monsoon will come early,” she said.

Disease is also a worry. “Hospitals are overflowing, water is scarce, bodies are still buried under the rubble and people are still sleeping in the open,” Rownak Khan, UNICEF’s deputy representative in Nepal, said in a statement.

“This is a perfect breeding ground for diseases.” —