With more than 4,000 confirmed dead, and a final toll that could reach as high as 10,000, the Nepalese earthquake is set to be a crisis for the country for months to come. At least 5.3 million people are homeless – around 20 per cent of the country’s population. Rural areas have been completely cut off by avalanches and landslides.
The following account is taken from AP.
Around noon, two helicopters brought in eight women from Ranachour village, two of them clutching babies to their breast, and a third heavily pregnant.
‘There are many more injured people in my village,’ said Sangita Shrestha, who was pregnant and visibly downcast as she got off the helicopter. She was quickly surrounded by Nepalese soldiers and policemen and ushered into a waiting van to be taken to a hospital.
The little town of Gorkha, the district’s administrative and trading center, is being used as a staging post to get rescuers and supplies to those remote communities.
Some villages were reachable only by air after landslides blocked mountain roads.
Some women who came off the helicopters were grimacing and crying in pain and unable to walk or speak, in agony three days after being injured in the quake.
Sita Karki winced when soldiers lifted her. Her broken and swollen legs had been tied together with crude wisps of hay twisted into a makeshift splint.
‘When the earthquake hit, a wall fell on me and knocked me down. My legs are broken,’ she said.
Geographical urges donations to the Disasters Emergency Committee’s Nepal appeal. Donations can be made here.
The Disasters Emergency Committee brings together 13 leading UK charities during a crisis: Action Aid, Age International, British Red Cross, CAFOD, Care International, Christian Aid, Concern Worldwide, Islamic Relief, Oxfam, Plan UK, Save the Children, Tearfund and World Vision.
