Army starts bringing in aid to Gorkha district, the epicenter of Nepal’s monster quake

By The Associated Press

2.15 p.m. (0830 GMT)

At Dubai International Airport, workers loaded crates packed with relief aid into a Boeing 747 destined for Nepal, just over a four-hour flight away.

The Gulf commercial hub is home to a sprawling logistical and warehouse facility known as International Humanitarian City that is used by United Nations agencies and NGOs to deploy humanitarian aid.

The chief executive of IHC, Shaima al-Zarooni, said relief workers have faced difficulties in delivering needed aid such as temporary shelters, satellite communications gear and medical equipment because of closures and congestion at the airport in Kathmandu.

The United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai, announced on Sunday it was deploying search-and-rescue team to Nepal on Sunday to help with recovery and relief efforts.

— Fay Abuelgasim, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

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2.15 p.m. (0830 GMT)

The largest Emirati telecom, Etisalat, is offering customers five free minutes to call loved ones in Nepal by entering a special code on their mobile phones.

Chief Marketing Officer Khaled Elkhouly described the move as “a small gesture during this hour of crisis.”

Kuwait announced Monday evening it would provide $3 million in urgent aid to assist victims of the earthquake.

The oil-rich Gulf states are a key destination for Nepalese migrant workers, where they find jobs as maids, security guards and construction workers.

— Adam Schreck, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

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1.15 p.m. (0730 GMT)

Helicopters crisscrossed the skies above the high mountains of Gorkha district, ferrying the injured to Gorkha and other towns for treatment, and aid supplies back out to remote villages — some reachable only by air after landslides blocked mountain roads.

Two charteredhelicopters brought in eight women from Ranachour village, two of them clutching babies to their breast, and a third heavily pregnant.

Sangita Shrestha, a heavily pregnant woman, said there are many more injured in her village.

Some of the women on the flight were grimacing and crying in pain and unable to walk or speak, in agony three days after being injured in the quake Saturday that killed more than 4,400 people.

Sita Karki winced when army troops lifted her from the helicopter. Her broken and swollen legs had been tied together with crude wisps of hay twisted into a makeshift splint to keep them from moving.

— Katy Daigle, Gorkha, Nepal

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1.00 pm. (0715 GMT)

In Bhaktapur, one of Nepal’s most historic cities neighbouring Kathmandu, people were beginning to go back to their damaged homes to collect anything they could salvage. A team of Chinese rescue workers was at work on the ground.

Some parts of the battered town look like a deserted jungle of electricity cables and broken bricks.

The tourists, so much a part of this temple town’s landscape, are now missing and the locals wander around.

At the local public hospital patients have been camped in the lawns since the massive quake struck Saturday and flies buzz everywhere.

Ten-year-old Sia Ganesh, her leg broken, cries in pain. Her grandmother tries to comfort her when she cries. Her father also suffered a broken leg.

Her 5-year-old brother Aros was among the more than 4,400 people killed in Saturday’s quake.

— Bernat Armangue, Bhaktapur, Nepal

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12.30 p.m. (0645 GMT)

At the Kathmandu airport, helicopters chartered by trekking brought in both foreign trekkers and local Nepalese villagers from remote areas where they were stranded after Saturday’s earthquake that killed more than 4,400 people.

Dave Gordon, from San Francisco, Ca., said he was in Langtang, a popular trekking area 60 kilometres (40 miles) north of Kathmandu, until Tuesday waiting for the rescue flight.

When the quake occurred, “cliffs came down” and four or five porters were killed, buried in the rock fall,” he said. “Trails are completely destroyed. People are stuck. They can’t get out. It was very bad.”

— Binaj Gurubacharya, Kathmandu, Nepal

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12.15 p.m. (0630 GMT)

An expedition doctor and base camp manager for a trekking group says that all those injured in Saturday’s quake-triggered avalanche have been evacuated and the dead bodies flown out.

Dr. Nima Namgyal Sherpa says at least five teams are still waiting to hear if they will get permission to scale the summit.

Sherpa says they “have not made the decision to quit yet.”

The others are now salvaging whatever they can and planning to trek down from base camp, Sherpa told The Associated Press in a WhatsApp message.

The government will decide within the week whether they’ll close the mountain or allow the climbers to proceed. At least 18 people were killed in the avalanche and more than 4,400 in the earthquake.

— Yirmiyan Arthur, New Delhi.

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Noon (0615 GMT)

The World Food Program says 1.4 million people are in need of immediate help following last week’s earthquake that killed more than 4,400 people, most of them in Nepal

WFP emergencies officer Geoff Pinnock says it has identified eight places that are in need of critical help and “our focus is on relief operations in those places.”

Those areas in Gorkha district, where the earthquake was centred, are Ghyachol, Saurpani, Warpak, Larpak, Gundra, Lapa, Kashigaun and Kerauja.

— Katy Daigle, Gorkha, Nepal

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11 a.m. (0515 GMT)

An American doctor working at a hospital in Kathmandu, says about 90 per cent of the houses are “just flattened” in Gorkha district, and hundreds of thousands of people are homeless after Saturday’s earthquake.

Rebecca McAteer says her team was the first to arrive in many places in Gorkha, where the earthquake’s epicenter was located. More than 4,400 people were killed in the earthquake.

She said these villages have very poor infrastructure with flimsy homes, and the residents are mostly older women and men, and children.

She said “the young men have all left to look for work elsewhere.”

— Katy Daigle, Gorkha, Nepal

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10.45 a.m. (0500 GMT)

Italy’s Foreign Ministry says four Italians are believed to be among those killed in the earthquake in Nepal over the weekend that killed more than 4,400 people.

The ministry says that based on information from their travel companions they were killed in the Langtang area, but noted that the area is still hard to access.

The ministry also said its crisis unit had not been able to reach about 40 Italian citizens believed to have been in the area.

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10.00 a.m. (0415 GMT)

Army troops are loading blue tarpaulin sheets, medical kits and dehydrated food, water bottles, sacks of rice and blankets at a flat area that is being used as a helipad in Gorkha town.

Gorkha district was the epicenter of Saturday’s magnitude 7.8 earthquake that has killed more than 4,400 people.

With the weather clearing it seems that for now helicopters will be able to pick up the supplies and relay to smaller villages.

The weather has been erratic over the last two days — there has been some rain and cloud cover making it difficult for helicopters to land in some areas close to the epicenter.

— Katy Daigle, Gorkha, Nepal

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9.45 a.m. (0400 GMT)

A team of 37 New Zealand urban search-and-rescue experts due to leave Monday night for Kathmandu has been told at the 11th hour not to come.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully said in a statement that Nepal’s government had informed him they had enough expertise in the country and the team was no longer required.

New Zealand has contributed 1 million New Zealand dollars ($761,000) to the relief effort following Saturday’s earthquake that killed more than 4,400 people.

— Nick Perry, Wellington, New Zealand

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9.30 a.m. (0345 GMT)

Army troops are loading bags of rice and cornmeal into a storage room at the district headquarters in Gorkha, the epicenter of Saturday’s massive earthquake.

District official Surya Mohan Adhikari says the supplies will be sent out later in the day to villages that need them most.

He said that in the rural areas 90 per cent of the people have been affected “by this calamity. They have lost their homes and livestock. They have no way of getting food.”

He says it is very difficult to reach them. They are cut off by landslides on the mountain roads, and the wind and rain is making it difficult for helicopters to land.

Adhikari said they have reports of some 300 casualties, but that number is rising. Nationwide, more than 4,400 people have been killed in the magnitude 7.8 quake.

— Katy Daigle, Gorkha, Nepal

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9.00 a.m. (0315 GMT)

A Nepal police official says at least 4,352 bodies have so far been recovered after last week’s massive earthquake that struck just outside of capital Kathmandu.

Deputy Inspector General of Police Komal Singh Bam says the toll includes 1,176 bodies recovered in Sindhupalchuk district, just northeast of the capital.

He says 8,063 people have been injured in the magnitude 7.8 quake.

Another 18 people were also killed in a quake-triggered avalanche that swept the Everest base camp. In neighbouring India 61 people were killed and China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported 25 dead in Tibet.

— Binaj Gurubacharya, Kathmandu, Nepal

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