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Earthquake Aftershocks Jolt Katmandu, and 'Everyone Is Scared' - New York Times

Photographs|14 Photos

Nepal Searches for Survivors After Earthquake

Nepal Searches for Survivors After Earthquake

Niranjan Shrestha/Associated Press

KATMANDU, Nepal — Each time this city shuddered with aftershocks from the earthquake that convulsed Nepal, Samaj Gautam felt an urge to join the millions of residents who fled to safety outdoors. But working in a hospital emergency ward inundated with the wounded, and their broken limbs, fractured skulls, and other physical traumas, Dr. Gautam said Sunday night, that he and his colleagues had to suppress their fears and stick to treating patients.

“I’m feeling exhausted but also scared, because the tremors have been by the dozens,” Dr. Gautam said as he worked through his own exhaustion inside the emergency ward of Bir Hospital in Katmandu, where he had been since soon after the earthquake hit Saturday. “But the most worrying thing to me is the aftereffect. Sanitation, disease, these are also serious worries.”

By sunrise Monday, when the extent of the devastation and death was still unclear, it was that uncertainty, over what the earthquake had wrought and what the future might hold, that spread fear and anxiety across Nepal. The true extent of disasters, like the one that hit Saturday, often become clear only in the days and weeks afterward, as the digging-out gains momentum, as crews work through the rubble of lives upended.

Play Video|1:01

Rescue Efforts Continue in Nepal Quake

Rescue Efforts Continue in Nepal Quake

The Indian government and rescue workers discussed the search and relief efforts in Nepal on Sunday, following the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck the country a day earlier.

April 26, 2015. Photo by Prakash Singh/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images.

But for now, getting through the day — and night — is the immediate challenge as aftershock after aftershock continues to rattle this country and its shaken people. In the capital, Katmandu, as if the powerful earthquake were not enough of a test, heavy rains pelted the thousands who sought safety in the streets, cowering under leaking tarpaulins and makeshift tents, wondering what had become of homes, lives and livelihoods thrown into limbo by the quake.

“We don’t have anyplace to go,” said Mohammed Kabil, one of a dozen or so men who were warming themselves near a smoky campfire as the drizzle turned to rain. They sat near the remains of the Dharahara Tower, a revered monument that was toppled by the quake.

“We don’t have any clothes, we don’t have enough food, we don’t have medicine, we don’t know when we can go back into our homes,” he said.

Sitting atop a major tectonic fault, Nepal is a country accustomed to the tremors of the earth. But Nepal has this time been overwhelmed by a powerful quake that killed more than 2,400 people and destroyed some of the country’s most treasured temples. Past and present were destroyed all at once, making digging out and rebuilding that much more daunting.

Photographs

The earthquake that struck Nepal on April 25 flattened sections of Katmandu’s historic center, where many structures were made with bricks.

OPEN Photographs

On Sunday afternoon, the streets of Katmandu were filled with people carrying bedrolls and pillows to any open space they could find, including a military parade ground that has been transformed into a giant tent city. Very few people seemed willing to sleep inside, certain that the next shock might make their homes pancake. There seemed an arbitrariness to the destruction, one building collapsing and entombing its occupants, while another nearby withstood the shock.

That, too, added to the uncertainty, the sense that sleeping in the street, in the rain, was the only hedge against the randomness of fate.

“Everyone is scared,” said Samir Thapa, a 30-year-old security guard who, like thousands of other residents, slept in the tent city. “Everyone is saying it will come again. No one is going to sleep at home.”

As the government of Nepal struggles to gain its bearings, an international relief effort has begun to shift into gear. The United States, India and China were among countries initiating their own relief efforts, but aid officials said they were finding it difficult to get out to rural areas where some of the greatest devastation is feared.

A woman at the cremation of an earthquake victim on Sunday at the Pashupatinath temple, on the banks of the Bagmati River, in Katmandu. Bernat Armangue/Associated Press

Even getting aid and relief workers into Katmandu was complicated, with fewer than a fifth of the regular daily flights now arriving, with airlines concerned about the effects of powerful aftershocks.

The government also pleaded with its own workers to help in local rescue efforts rather than going to their usual jobs.

There is an urgency to the need, knowing well how devastation can spread its roots beyond the immediate crisis. The crammed encampments, for instance, are almost certain to pose a health risk in the days ahead, Dr. Gautam said, as unsanitary conditions could allow disease to spread. “Even some patients prefer to stay in the open field, because they’re afraid of being inside.”

On Mount Everest, helicopter rescue operations began Sunday morning to take wounded climbers off the mountain, where at least 18 climbers were killed and 41 others injured. At least three Americans were among the dead: Marisa Eve Girawong, a physician assistant working for Madison Mountaineering of Seattle; Dan Fredinburg, a Google engineer; and, according to Reuters, Tom Taplin, a 61-year-old filmmaker from Colorado.

Play Video|0:35

Survivors Rescued From Mount Everest

Survivors Rescued From Mount Everest

Rescue crews airlifted survivors from the Mount Everest base camp on Sunday after Nepal’s worst earthquake in 81 years triggered a series of avalanches.

By Carsten Lillelund Pedersen on April 26, 2015. Photo by Azim Afif/European Pressphoto Agency.

Public frustration over the hardships brought by the disaster could grow into a political ire with the government, if its response is seen as too little too late.

“We feel we are helpless,” said Biraj Bikram Shah, a pilot who wandered through his neighborhood darkened by a power blackout. “We can do nothing.”

He and his family slept in their garden despite the rain. Pedestrians seemed to do everything in their power to stay away from buildings. They walked in the street instead of on sidewalks.

The government announced that schools would remain closed for at least five days.

A search-and-rescue team found a survivor, at center right, lying next to a dead friend. The country has been hit by heavy rains, leaving thousands of people afraid to go indoors taking shelter under tarpaulins and in makeshift tents. Prakash Mathema/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Across Katmandu, especially in the oldest districts, there are piles of detritus — timber beams and broken bricks. In the heart of the historic district, the country’s most prized temples are rubble. These buildings “are what made Katmandu special,” Sri Kitav Sangoala, a middle-aged truck driver, said as he surveyed the piles of bricks that the authorities believe contain more bodies.

“So many sites are destroyed,” he said. “Our history is gone.”

In time, engineers and scientists will no doubt offer explanations for why some buildings collapsed into splinters and piles of bricks while others next door appeared indifferent to the violence of the earthquake.

But for now, there was still the overwhelming trauma of the quake. Iccha Gauchan, a 33-year-old homemaker, said she clutched the wall of her home as everything in her kitchen flew from the shelves. She moved her hands like a metronome to describe how the houses next to hers swayed during the quake.

Map

Maps show the epicenter of the earthquake, aftershocks and an avalanche triggered on Mount Everest.

OPEN Map

“I thought I had died,” she said. She is sleeping at the military parade ground, and although her house is intact, she does not plan to return home for several days. “How can we sleep at night?”

Others have no home to return to. Depak Lama, 35, a street vendor, can only stare at the pile of bricks that used to be his home. Under the rubble is his savings, his identity card, his mobile phone, clothing and all of his family documents.

In the seconds before the earthquake struck, Mr. Lama said it felt like it suddenly became very windy outside. Birds flew away in a frenzy. He grabbed his 2-year-old son and ran from the building as bricks fell on his head. On Sunday, among the dusty piles of debris that was once his home, were a pair of socks, pages of a book and a padlock.

Dr. Gautam, 30, said he had rushed into work at the emergency ward of Bir Hospital soon after the earthquake struck. The ward and a unit for less serious injuries had treated about 1,000 people over the weekend, far higher than the 15 or 20 people they receive on an average weekend.

Although the hospital is one of Katmandu’s best-regarded government hospitals, its relatively primitive equipment and medical supplies were no match for the influx of patients with broken limbs, punctured chests and other injuries.

“The casualties from the buildings will still grow,” he said, “not so fast, but the other problems will grow.”

Reporting was contributed by Gardiner Harris, Nida Najar, Hari Kumar and Suhasini Raj from New Delhi; and Bhadra Sharma  from Katmandu.




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