Nepal earthquake: Survivors feel abandoned

Melamchi: Desperate survivors living at ground zero of Nepal’s earthquake on Friday complained they felt abandoned to their fate after losing their loved ones and livelihoods in a disaster that has claimed more than 6,300 lives. 

 

While the joyous rescue of two survivors reinvigorated the search for further signs of life in the ruins of Kathmandu, the Red Cross warned of “total devastation” in far-flung areas of the poor Himalayan nation. 

 

Six days on from the 7.9-magnitude quake, authorities put the number of dead in Nepal at 6,204. The destruction appeared particularly dire in the Sindhupalchowk region, northeast of Kathmandu, where the sense of desperation was mounting. 

 

“One of our teams that returned from Chautara in Sindhupalchowk district reported that 90 per cent of the homes are destroyed,” said Jagan Chapagain, Asia head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. 

 

“The hospital has collapsed, and people are digging through the rubble with their hands in the hope that they might find family members who are still alive.” “Almost every house in my village is destroyed, and 20 people died. We lost our cattle and our sheep,” said Kumar Ghorasainee, amid the ruins of his hometown of Melamchi. 

 

The 33-year-old English teacher said the school had collapsed and there was nowhere for the children to go. 

Although international relief organisers say the operation to reach rural areas is intensifying, people in Melamchi had received nothing. 

 

“We see the helicopters, we see the planes, but no one stops here,” said 23-year-old farmer Shalik Ram Ghorasainee. He described how a Japanese aid team spotted a local man collapsed by the side of the road. “They stopped to give him  painkillers,” said Ghorasainee.