Nepal earthquake: Karnataka govt contacts stranded, 85 from state safe

Bengaluru: The state government has established contact with a group of 85 people from Karnataka, who had gone to Nepal through a private tour operator. All of them are safe. The government is still in the process of identifying and contacting hundreds of others from the state, who were touring the quake-hit country.

The government has set up two helplines – 1070 and 080-22340676 – to help people enquire about their relatives stranded in Nepal. The government has sent two officers to Kathmandu to coordinate with the Nepalese and Indian governments on rescue and evacuation efforts.

The officers – Pankajkumar Pande, Managing Director, Bescom, and Umesh Kumar, IGP (Northern range) – left on Saturday and they will enter Nepal through Gorakhpur in Bihar. A team of 35 members who had gone on a package tour to Kashi and Nepal through a travel agency in Tumkur are safe in Manokamna, about 200 km away from Katmandu. The government has also appointed Ritesh Kumar Singh, Secretary, Revenue Department (Disaster Management Cell), to monitor the crisis. Mr Singh said that he got a call from Mr Suresh on Saturday morning.

“Mr Suresh said that he was leading a team of 85 members to Nepal and all of them are safe. The government has informed their relatives and friends,” Mr Singh said. “Smaller groups of three to four people too have gone to Nepal through various private tour operators. We are trying to contact them. Mr Umesh Kumar  had worked in Bihar and was also deputed to border district of Gorakhpur and he is familiar with the area,” Mr Singh said.

“I have been receiving thousands of calls from people seeking information about their relatives and friends. We will immediately prepare a list of missing people,” he said. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has directed Health Minister U.T. Khader to send a team of doctors to Nepal if need be.

A Nepalese man and a woman hold each other in quake-hit Kathmandu on Saturday (Photo: AFP)

Everyone is out on roads: Quake survivor

A family of six from Kathriguppe in Bengaluru, who had gone on a pilgrimage on April 22 to Muktinath temple in Nepal, is stranded at a hotel in Pokhara. Ms Sowmyashri, wife of a senior correspondent of a regional daily, Shivakumar Bellithatte, told Deccan Chronicle that his family members are safe and waiting for further instructions to move to Kathmandu. Ms Sowmyashri, with her father Raghavendra Rao, mother Parimala, aunt Susheela, brother Srikanth and her daughter Neethi, had gone to Muktinath temple, 23.5 km from Jomsom on Friday, and got back to Jomsom to board their flight to Pokhara on Saturday morning.

“Fortunately, we were not in Kathmandu when the earthquake struck. We were coming back from Jomsom to Pokhara in a private vehicle because our flight got cancelled. Luckily we were not inside any building. We could only see stones falling from the mountains, but we were not hit. We safely reached Pokhara, but everyone is sitting and waiting outside,” she told Deccan Chronicle. “We cannot go to Kathmandu for another three days as an alarm has been sounded by the Nepalese government, our hotel manager told us. We are waiting for the clearance to get back to the capital to fly back to India,” she said.

Sowmyashri said “A heavy snowfall hit us when we were coming back from Muktinath, and we stayed overnight at Jomsom. We had a flight to catch to Pokhara, which is 151 km away, but it was cancelled,” she said.

Keeping in touch through WhatsApp

“I have kept in touch with my husband in Bengaluru through WhatsApp as we have not been able to make calls. We have our return tickets booked for April 29 from Kathmandu to India. People are either on the ground floor or outside buildings. The roads are not blocked. We saw boulders on roads as we were reaching Pokharra.” Eleven people from Hosakerehalli near Basavanagudi in Bengaluru are stranded in Kathmandu.

They are all safe at a hotel in Gangjong, Kathmandu, said government officials, who are coordinating the rescue efforts. They have been identified as Siddamakaiah (52), Shivamma (50), Tejas Gowda (15), Narayanamma (70), Chandrashekhar (42), Nagarathna (37), Manoj (15), Muniyamma (69), Shankaramma (61), Rajendra (32) and Deepu Gowda (24). There 40 Kannadigas in this hotel alone.

No information on 7 from Davangere

There has been no information from seven people from Davangere, who had gone on a pilgrimage to Nepal, setting off a panic among their relatives. The missing have been identified as Susheela, Parimala, Raghavendra, Srikanth, Sowmya and two children. All their phones have remained unreachable, their relatives said. The team left India on April 22. They were scheduled to leave for Pokhara from Kathmandu on Saturday morning.

After the news of earthquake broke out, Narahari and relatives of others in the team tried to contact them, but to no avail. Thousands of Nepalese working and studying in the city were worried about the fate of their families back home after the severe earthquake hit the Himalayan country. Mr Balbeer Harisingh, a security supervisor who is from a village near Kathmandu, said, “I am planning to leave on Sunday morning. My wife, two children and parents are staying in the village. I am worried," he said.