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Kathmandu (Nepal) — Rescue workers seeking to reach people who desperately need help in earthquake-ravaged Nepal face myriad obstacles — and the weather is only making things worse.In the district of Gorkha, where the 7.8-magnitude quake was centred, a large storm rumbled over the mountainous terrain on Tuesday afternoon.
“There was thunder and lightning — water was rushing down the road where I was standing,” said Matt Darvas, an emergency communications officer for World Vision. “That essentially shut down helicopter missions for the entire afternoon, except for a small window before sunset,” Darvas, who is currently in the main town in Gorkha, told CNN yesterday.
The cancelled helicopter flights meant fewer airdrops of vital supplies to devastated villages and dashed hopes of rescue for injured people in isolated locations.
Nepalese authorities have so far said 5,016 people died and more than 10,000 were injured as a result of the massive earthquake that struck Saturday. But officials have warned the death toll is expected to rise.
Two neighbouring countries, India and China, have reported totals of 72 and 25 deaths from the quake, respectively.
The frequent downpours in Nepal have made it harder for emergency workers to help the injured.
CNN’s Dr Sanjay Gupta was at an army field hospital in Kathmandu, the capital, when the heavens opened on Tuesday. “The rain has arrived and in many cases this is the worst-case scenario,” he said. “This is what they were hoping wouldn’t happen.”
The harsh weather intensifies the hardships for the countless Nepalis who are sleeping out in the open because their homes were destroyed or they don’t feel safe inside buildings amid continuing aftershocks.
The rain also increases the risk of landslides and mudslides across rugged terrain already destabilised by the earthquake’s tremors.
Two landslides were reported Tuesday afternoon in the Langtang region, a popular trekking area north of Kathmandu. As many as 200 people were feared to be missing in each of the two landslides, officials said.
Foreigners are among the missing from one of them, said Gautam Rimal, a senior official in Rasuwa district. He said 210 people had been rescued from the area yesterday by government helicopters.
According to army officials, dozens of foreigners are among those to have been rescued from the Dhunche area, near Langtang, in the past three days. Other victims, including foreigners, still wait to be brought out. And the bad weather isn’t expected to give traumatised Nepalis much of a break anytime soon.
Meanwhile, a man pulled from the rubble of a collapsed hotel by a French rescue team more than three days after the deadly Nepal earthquake says he was forced to drink his own urine to survive.
Rishi Khanal, aged 27, had just finished lunch at a hotel in Kathmandu and had gone up to the second floor when everything suddenly started to move and fall apart. He was struck by falling masonry and trapped with his foot crushed under rubble.
“I had some hope but by yesterday I’d given up. My nails went all white and my lips cracked. I was sure no one was coming for me. I was certain I was going to die,” he told The Associated Press from his hospital bed on Wednesday, surrounded by his family.
He was surrounded by dead people and a terrible smell. But he kept banging on the rubble all around him and eventually this brought a French rescue team that extracted him after an operation lasting many hours. By the time he was pulled out, he had been trapped, in what could have become his tomb for 82 hours.
“There was no sound going out, or coming in. I kept banging against the rubble and finally someone responded and came to help. I hadn’t eaten or had anything to drink so I drank my own urine.”
It was not clear if he was a hotel employee or not.
“It feels good. I’m thankful,” he said. He was taken away for surgery before more details could be obtained. — CNN
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