4/30/2015

Nepal earthquake: A desperate need for tents, shelter - CNN.com

Nepal earthquake: Homeless urgently need tents;

death toll above 5,500
By Manesh Shrestha, Jethro Mullen and Laura Smith-Spark, CNN
Updated 0459 GMT (1159 HKT) April 30, 2015

02:43

Glimmers of hope
among the rubble in
Nepal

01:33

01:00

Earthquake survivor:
'This entire place is a
graveyard'

Story highlights
NEW: Death toll in Nepal reaches 5,489,
officials say; casualties in India and China, too
U.N. children's agency says 1.7 million
children are in urgent need of aid in Nepal
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/29/asia/nepal-earthquake/

New video shows

moment massive quake
hits Nepal

01:06

Infant rescued from

rubble brings hope to
Nepal

Kathmandu, Nepal (CNN)Half a million

tents are urgently needed for the huge number
of people forced from their homes by Nepal's
devastating earthquake, a government
minister said Wednesday.
Minendra Rijal, Nepal's minister of information
and communications, said relief operations
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President Obama calls Nepal's Prime Minister

to discuss disaster response

were underway but that much more needs to

be done.

"Life is returning to normal, but it will be some

time to be completely normal," he said. "We
have still not been able to properly manage to provide relief."
Want to learn more about Nepal? Get the Fast Facts
Rijal wasn't able to put a precise number on those made homeless by Saturday's
devastating quake, but he said the government had so far provided more than 4,700 tents
and 22,000 tarpaulins to those in need of shelter.

Aircraft loaded with tents are expected from India and Thailand in the next day, he said,
with another 100,000 tents expected from Pakistan.
Two UNICEF flights arrived Wednesday with supplies such as water-purification tablets,
family hygiene kits and tents and tarps.
UNICEF Regional Communication Advisor Jean-Jacques Simon said the supplies "are
desperately needed by those living in camps, and other areas in Kathmandu, the
London,
Kathmandu
ValleyUnited
and inKingdom
hard-to-reach
16 remote areas, where
UNICEF plans to distribute
the items as soon as possible."
|Edition
Sign in has
MyCNN
International
The United Nations has said SearchCNN
the quake
affected 8 million people across 39 districts.

News

Rijal said 21 helicopters, including seven

provided by India, were helping in the rescue
World
and relief efforts, with 866 people
rescued by
air and a little more than 1,000 rescued using
Sport
land transport.
Technology
As rescue workers seek to reach people who
desperately need help, the weather
is making
locations
Entertainment
things worse.
Style
EXPAND IMAGE
Heavy rain has intensified the hardships for
the countless Nepalis who areTravel
sleeping out in
the open because their homes were destroyed or they don't feel safe inside buildings amid
Money
continuing aftershocks.
Map of Nepal earthquake epicenter and aftershock

At Tundhikal Park, known now as Tent City, the crowds are thinning, but it's
not necessarily
Regions
a sign of improvement.
U.S.
On Wednesday, some had enough of sleeping huddled in a tent and were readying to
return to their houses. That's the correct term -- houses; they were no longer
homes, no
China
longer places of sanctuary.
Asia
U.S. President Barack Obama called Prime Minister Sushil Koirala on Wednesday to
Middle East

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express condolences, the White House said. This is the first time Obama has spoken with
the Prime Minister since Saturday's first earthquake.
Obama and he talked about disaster response efforts and Obama pledged that the United
States "will do all that it can to help the people of Nepal in their time of need," the White
House said.

Vital supplies
In the district of Gorkha, where the magnitude-7.8 quake was centered, a large storm
rumbled over the mountainous terrain Tuesday afternoon.

Man pulled from earthquake rubble in

Nepal after 80 hours 01:04

"That essentially shut down helicopter

missions for the entire afternoon, except for a
small window before sunset," Matt Darvas, an
emergency communications officer for the
humanitarian group World Vision, told CNN on
Wednesday. He's currently in the main town in
Gorkha.
But signs of improvement can be found.

Outside the walls of Ranta Park's tent city, the

streets are beginning to come back to life.
PLAY VIDEO Small groups work together to clear sidewalks
and roads of rubble after the earthquake. Cars
and motorbikes buzz down the streets, while
shops reopen for business. Street vendors are out once again.
But Ranta Park is still a grim place There are few signs of activity here, as families wait for
some change in the status quo.
From Delhi to Nepal: A flight of sorrow and hope to cover an earthquake

Makeshift field hospital

Some 5,489 people were confirmed dead as of Thursday morning as a result of the
massive earthquake, with another 11,440 injured, Nepal's National Emergency
Coordination Center told CNN. Officials have warned the death toll is expected to rise.
Nineteen of the deaths occurred on Mount Everest, where the tremors set off deadly
avalanches, the Nepal Mountaineering Association said.
Two neighboring 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 when the heavens
opened Tuesday.
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"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."

Gupta said it was "kind of remarkable what

they've been able to do" at the makeshift
hospital. Over three days, the medical staff
there had treated 617 patients and saved 586
of them.

Powerful earthquake hits Nepal 56

photos
EXPAND GALLERY

Surrogate mothers, unborn children at risk

Monsoon looms

The rain has also increased the risk of

landslides and mudslides across rugged terrain already destabilized 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 landslides, officials said.

CNN embeds with Nepalese military to

survey destruction 02:52
PLAY VIDEO

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 Wednesday by
government helicopters.

Peter Bodde, U.S. ambassador to Nepal, said

via Twitter on Wednesday that four U.S.
citizens trapped in Langtang were among
those rescued and that they were on their way to Kathmandu.
According to army officials, dozens of foreigners are among those saved from the Dhunche
area, near Langtang, in the past three days. Other victims, including foreigners, still wait to
be brought out.
Complete coverage on the Nepal quake

Villagers cut off from families

Many people are stuck at the main town in Gorkha, unable to reach their families in villages
cut off by the earthquake.
They include Kumar Gurung, a 37-year-old man who has had no word from his wife and
four children since the hours after the quake, according to Darvas.
Gurung was on his way to a town 80
kilometers (about 50 miles) away for an animal
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Nepal earthquake: A desperate need for tents, shelter - CNN.com

health training course when the earthquake

threw his plans into chaos.

Rural areas in Nepal devastated 03:21

PLAY VIDEO

Now he can't get back to his village, Singla,

which is perched on a mountain above a cliff
face and would take days to reach after
landslides blocked roads. Before he lost
contact with them, the people in his village
told him that at least 70% of the dwellings in
the village had been destroyed.

Darvas said that Gurung told him: "I am incredibly sad about this situation and want to
rescue not just my family but all of my friends in the village, but I don't know what to do or
how to reach them."
Local leaders in the main town in Gorkha are
"absolutely exhausted and totally stretched"
as they try to deal with the crisis in their
district, Darvas said.

Their difficulties are being shared by other

officials across Nepal. An influx of
international aid is struggling to find its way to
many of the people in need. Officials have
reported logjams at Kathmandu's airport as
well as on the way to badly affected areas.

Drone video shows destruction in

Nepal 01:00
PLAY VIDEO

How you can help the victims

Anger flares in Kathmandu

In Kathmandu, where the quake felled temples and homes across the city of more than 1.7
million, many people are desperately trying to return to their family homes in the
countryside.
The situation has led to angry outbursts at times.
One 13-year-old girl, Manushi, who joined protests Wednesday in Kathmandu, told CNN
that too little was being done to help.
The 14 people in her family were getting only one plate of food for every two of them, she
said.
On Tuesday, a squad of riot police was deployed in response to a short-lived effort to block
traffic as part of a demonstration.
Protesters were shouting "down with the government" and accusing authorities of not
doing enough to stop bus companies from hiking their prices. They also complained the
government hadn't done enough to help victims of the disaster.
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Police officials said Wednesday that they had deployed troops to help manage the throngs
of people seeking transportation out of town and that there had been some reports of
looting but no serious breakdown in order.
"People just want to get home," said Pushparam KC, a spokesman for Nepal's Armed
Police.
But those people were much better off than those cramming the wards in nearby hospitals.
Rishi Khanal, 27, had just undergone surgery and was resting, surrounded by family and
friends. He had been buried under the rubble for 82 hours before a French rescue team
pulled him out Tuesday. His rescue took several hours, and Nepalese police posted a video
of it on YouTube.
Khanal had spoken briefly to a few reporters but on this afternoon, he could not. He was too
distraught and too feeble. His foot was crushed and his relatives did not want him to relive
the trauma of having survived buried for more than three days.
But he was alive. A sign of hope in a hospital full of despair.
CNN'sManeshShrestha,MoniBasuandOrenLiebermannreportedfromKathmandu,JethroMullenreportedandwrote
fromHongKong,andLauraSmithSparkwroteinLondon.CNN'sElizabethJoseph,IvanWatson,SugamPokharel,
KhalilAbdallahcontributedtothisreport.

Nepal earthquake

Homeless urgently need tents; death toll surging

Man pulled from rubble after 80 hours

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/29/asia/nepal-earthquake/

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Nepal earthquake: A desperate need for tents, shelter - CNN.com

Camera captures Everest avalanche

Tales of visitors who survived -- and those who did not

Aerial images show Nepal quake damage

Photos of the devastation

Quake expected but infrastructure not ready

How to help the quake victims

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/29/asia/nepal-earthquake/

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Nepal earthquake: A desperate need for tents, shelter - CNN.com

A flight of sorrow, hope to cover an earthquake

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