Rescuers dug with their bare hands and bodies piled up in Nepal on Sunday after an earthquake devastated the heavily crowded Kathmandu Valley, killing more than 2,200 people, and triggered a deadly avalanche on Mount Everest.
A big aftershock between Kathmandu and Everest unleashed more avalanches in the Himalayas. In the capital, hospital workers stretchered patients out onto the street to treat them as it was too dangerous to keep them indoors.
“Another one, we have an aftershock right now. Oh shit!” said Indian climber Arjun Vajpai over the phone from Makalu base camp near Everest.
“Avalanche!” he shouted. Screams and the roar of crashing snow could be heard over the line as he spoke.
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In Everest’s worst disaster, the bodies of 17 climbers were recovered from the mountain on Sunday after being caught in avalanches. A plane carrying the first 15 injured climbers landed in Kathmandu at around noon local time.
“There is a lot of confusion on the mountain. The toll will rise,” said Gelu Sherpa, one of the walking wounded among the first 15 injured climbers flown to Kathmandu. “Tents have been blown away,” said Sherpa, his head in bandages.
Fresh Tremors
The tremor, measured at 6.7, was the most powerful since Saturday’s 7.9 quake - itself the strongest since Nepal’s worst earthquake disaster of 1934 that killed 8,500 people.
The aftershock rocked buildings in the Indian capital New Delhi and halted the city metro.
There is no way one can forecast the intensity of aftershocks so people need to be alert for the next few days.
- L.S. Rathore, Director General of IMD
With Nepal’s government overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster, India flew in medical supplies and relief crews, while China sent in a 60-strong emergency team. Relief agencies said hospitals in the Kathmandu Valley were overflowing and running out of medical supplies.
Relief Operations
Army officer Santosh Nepal and a group of rescuers worked all night to open a passage into a collapsed building in Kathmandu. They had to use pick axes because bulldozers could not get through the ancient city’s narrow streets.
“We believe there are still people trapped inside,” he told Reuters, pointing at concrete debris and twisted reinforcement rods where a three-storey residential building once stood.
Among the capital’s landmarks destroyed in the earthquake was the 60-metre (200-foot) Dharahara Tower, built in 1832 for the queen of Nepal, with a viewing balcony that had been open to visitors for the last 10 years.
A jagged stump was all that was left of the lighthouse-like structure. As bodies were pulled from the ruins on Saturday, a policeman said up to 200 people had been trapped inside.
Bodies were still arriving on Sunday at one hospital in Kathmandu, where police officer Sudan Shreshtha said his team had brought 166 corpses overnight.
“I am tired and exhausted, but I have to work and have the strength,” Shreshtha told Reuters as an ambulance brought three more victims to the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital.
“Both private and government hospitals have run out of space and are treating patients outside, in the open,” said Nepal’s envoy to India, Deep Kumar Upadhyay. Prime Minister Sushil Koirala is back from abroad and will soon address the country.
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