|
 Over 200 Nepalis protested outside parliament in the capital
Kathmandu, demanding the government increase the number of buses
going to the interior hills and improve distribution of aid.
"I haven't been able to contact my family members in the village,"
said Kayant Panday, one of the protesters, who said he woke up at 4
a.m. to get a bus to a badly hit area but was not able to get one.
"There is no way I can get information whether they are dead or
alive."
The government has yet to fully assess the devastation wrought by
Saturday's 7.8 magnitude quake, unable to reach many mountainous
areas despite aid supplies and personnel pouring in from around the
world.
Anger and frustration were mounting, with many Nepalis sleeping out
in the open under makeshift tents for a fourth night since the
country's worst quake in more than 80 years.
"This is a disaster on an unprecedented scale. There have been some
weaknesses in managing the relief operation," Nepal's Communication
Minister Minendra Rijal said late on Tuesday.
 "We will improve this from Wednesday."
Prime Minister Sushil Koirala has told Reuters the death toll could
reach 10,000, with information on casualties and damage from
far-flung villages and towns yet to come in.
That would surpass the 8,500 who died in a 1934 earthquake, the last
disaster on this scale to hit the Himalayan nation of 28 million
people located between India and China.
HILLSIDES COLLAPSE
Rescue helicopters have been unable to land in some remote
mountainous areas. Shambhu Khatri, a technician on board one of the
helicopters, said entire hillsides had collapsed in parts of the
worst-hit Gorkha district, burying settlements, and access was
almost impossible.
A health official in Laprak, a village in the district best known as
the home of Gurkha soldiers, estimated that 1,600 of the 1,700
houses in the village had been razed.
An official from Nepal's home ministry said the number of confirmed
deaths had risen to 5,006. Almost 10,000 were injured in Nepal, and
more than 80 were also killed in India and Tibet.
In Kathmandu and other cities, hospitals quickly overflowed with
injured soon after the quake, with many being treated out in the
open or not at all.
Foreign Secretary Shanker Das Bairagi appealed for specialist
doctors from overseas, as well as for search-and-rescue teams
despite earlier suggestions from officials that Nepal did not need
more such assistance.
"Our top priority is for relief and rescue teams. We need
neurologists, orthopedic surgeons and trauma surgeons," Bairagi
said. Experts from a Polish NGO that has an 87-strong team in Nepal
have said the chances of finding people alive in the ruins five days
after the quake were "next to zero".
RARE HOPE
Nevertheless, a Nepali-French rescue team pulled a 28-year-old man,
Rishi Khanal, from a collapsed apartment block in Kathmandu on
Tuesday after he had spent around 80 hours trapped in a room with
three dead bodies.
[to top of second column] |
Doctors plan to amputate one of his legs later on Wednesday because
it has been damaged by internal bleeding.
"We are trying to make contact with his parents and family members
because we are going to perform a serious surgery on him," said one
of the doctors, Akhilesh Shrestha.
In one of the first signs that normal life was returning, some
street vendors started selling fruit in Kathmandu, but others said
they were too scared to open shops because buildings had been so
badly damaged.
"I want to start selling, I have children at home, but how can I
open a shop where it is risky for me to sit inside?" said Arjun Rai,
a 54-year-old who runs a general store.
Tensions between foreigners and Nepalis desperate for relief
surfaced, rescuers said, as fresh avalanches were reported in
several areas.
Members of Israeli search-and-rescue group Magnus said hundreds of
tourists, including about 100 Israelis, were being airlifted out of
Langtang in Rasuwa district, a popular trekking area north of
Kathmandu hit by a fresh avalanche on Tuesday.
Fights had broken out there because of food shortages, Magnus team
member Amit Rubin said. One of the trekkers said there had also been
scuffles over places on the rescue helicopters.
In other remote areas where rescue helicopters were unable to land,
soldiers had started to make their way overland, first by bus, then
by foot.
In Sindhupalchowk, about 3-1/2 hours by road northeast of Kathmandu,
the earthquake was followed by landslides, killing 1,206 people and
seriously injuring close to 400.
The quake also triggered an avalanche on Mount Everest that killed
at least 18 climbers and guides, including four foreigners, the
worst disaster on the world's highest peak.
(Additional reporting by Sanjeev Miglani, Ross Adkin, Frank Jack
Daniel, Andrew Marshall and Christophe Van Der Perre in Kathmandu,
Aman Shah and Clara Ferreira-Marques in Mumbai, Aditya Kalra,
Douglas Busvine and Aditi Shah in New Delhi; Writing by Raju
Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Mike Collett-White)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
