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Overview of the aid situation as far as OTWT is
concerned Nepal June 2015
As an immediate result
of the earthquake on the 25 April both Sarita’s parents were unaccounted for, but
the family in Kathmandu were all safe and sound. Within a few days her father
made contact but it took 10 days before her mother was able to return home, or
indeed to contact us prior to that.
Sarita’s mother
travelled to Gumpathang (Gumpa) in Sindapulchowk two days before the quake to
visit family relatives. The earthquake destroyed many of the houses in the
village and also instigated many serious landslips around the village’s
immediate locality. The villagers took refuge in the forested area on higher
less steep land fearing the landslips would widen and consume what remained of
the buildings. Hence many people were ‘away’ from the village when helicopter
search and rescue attempts were made by the authorities.
Sarita’s mother
eventually made it back to Kathmandu after a 6+ hour walk, a three hour motor
bike ride and another 3-4 hours in a jeep. Partly due to a lack of understanding
of the overall devastation created by the earthquake and partly for emotional
reasons and the need to do something, we as a family (Sarita and I) decided we
would try to help both Gumpathang (mother’s village) and Megre (father’s
village) with immediate aid and eventually reconstruction work.
At this point a friend
who is a doctor from Australia and regular visitor to Nepal, Bill Crozier (ex
pat from the UK – he’s a Geordie but that doesn’t make him a bad person!!) arrived
and we worked as a team up to the 7th June when he returned home to
Brisbane.
Gumpathang
Once we had a
first-hand report on the situation in Gumpa we were able to start the planning
to deliver aid. The situation was critical, but there were several issues that
slowed the process down, the two main ones being the method of delivery and the
security of the aid to be delivered. At this point several of the lads I had
trained as trekking guides and trainers contacted me to see about combining
skills and resources to enable us to get into the remote regions.
Sarita’s ‘Ama’
accompanied me to a planning meeting and was able to provide accurate
information on the size of the population, the immediate needs, state of the
trails and the attitude of the other communities in the locality as well as
other very revenant information to aid planning relief.
To travel by road and
then walking to Gumpa would have taken up to possibly 16 hours, two days (up-
hill). The roads were closed and the trails were in a very dangerous condition
due to the instability of the terrain. There was also evidence that the local
people in the communities through which any aid would pass were looting trucks
etc. Basically we were at an impasse, we did not have the man-power to securely
walk in nor did we have the authority to be able to secure helicopter air-lifts.
I spent several days
tapping into all my connections, including the Indian Mountaineering Foundation
that is funded by the Indian Air Force to see if I could pull strings. I got as
far as a strongly worded conversation of support from the Indian Embassy in
Kathmandu only to have it blocked by the Nepal Government who were, at that
time, managing all helicopter flight allocations.
By now we had a direct
line of communication to Gumpathang and were able to get more up to date
information on the community requirements.
At this point DIFD had
secured funding and established a protocol to allow organizations to ‘charter’
helicopters at a greatly reduced cost. Bill and I spent a couple of hours
discussing the situation with MAF to try to secure a helicopter but in the end
because we were not a registered aid agency we were again blocked. All private
helicopters were now under the control of the Ministry and MAF.
Our only alternative
was to go by jeep. To try to ‘protect’ our cargo we packaged everything in OTWT
trek bags and then Bill and I set out as foreigners on a ‘potential’ trek
accompanied by our Nepal ‘staff’. This seemed to work, we passed though
communities with all aid intact and even when we had to change vehicles because
of the state of the trail we were provided with local courtesy. Our vehicular
journey ended about 45minutes before the road head, giving us still at least a
good 6 hour walk to Gumpathang assuming all trails were safe and in place.
Gumpa community people
had walked down to meet us with the aim of carrying the rice, tarps, tents and
other bits and pieces up to their community. We just reached Kattike when the
second earthquake struck. Unlike the first quake on this occasion there was no
split second build up to the main event, in this case there was just a very
loud noise and the buildings immediately collapsed. If you were lucky
everything falling missed you, if you were unlucky you got hit, there was no
time to run. Kattike was already serious damaged and the second quake literally
destroyed anything that had previously been spared. Everybody escaped injury,
the army, who were based at a temporary camp nearby were immediately on the
scene armed with helmets, picks and shovels – I have to say I was impressed
with their immediate response.
However, this latest
event sent fear, stress and anxiety through the whole community. They gathered
near the army camp above the village and stayed there for the rest of the day
and that night. All trails up the valley were blocked by landslides and those buildings
we had passed by lower down the valley had totally collapsed blocking the rough
road. Some of the villagers from Gumpathang had gone right down the valley to
try to collect rice from a helicopter delivery so at the time of the second
quake Gumpathang had very few fit young people in residence – only the old or
the very young remained. Some of the people who had come to support us said
they would try to reach their homes but did not want to take the heavy aid items
as they felt the trails would be too risky. They returned to report to us the
following day, the trails were too dangerous so they only took the minimum
supplies with them and prevented us from going any further as it was perceived
the trails and hillsides were too unstable. There were no feasible alternate
routes into the village. Now we could not go up, nor could we return down the
valley. Finally we decided to leave the tents and rice etc in Kattike as the
people from Gumpa would be travelling up and down the trial and would have
somewhere to stop in the mid -point of the journey. We stayed in the village for three days.
After subsequent
discussions with the community they had decided that in preparation for the
monsoons they required roofing materials. To avoid any local conflict they
suggested that they would contact us, come to Kathmandu, we’d purchase the tin
and rice etc and then they would be responsible for getting their own supplies
back to Gumpathang – so far this plan is working well. The ‘Nissan’ type
shelters were thought to be too heavy and so just the tin is required.
Megre
This operation was a
far simpler affair. We were able to secure a Tata truck, we loaded it with over
1000kg of rice, 200 tarps, water purification equipment and tents. The journey
into Ramechhap went well although it took 11 hours. Once in the village we were
surprised to see that nearly all the buildings were still standing. However,
the next morning we took a tour and discovered that the nature of the tremours
were such that a different form of damage had occurred. In Gumpathang all the
buildings had ‘shuddered’ into a
collapsed state and into piles of rubble, in Megre the buildings seemed
to have ‘jumped’ resulting in the outer walls remaining virtually in tacked
while the inner walls had collapsed inside the buildings.
A community meeting
was called and a system to divide the aid was established. Smaller groups of
associated people were arranged and the aid was divided out per group – these
were extended family groups so that the aid would have been a sharing out
within the temporary shelters.
Bill ran a surgery,
ably supported by Gita, Sarita’s sister, who had accompanied us on both trips
as a translator and support for Bill in all matters medical.
Future Support
It is very evident
through talking to all people in the communities they have managed to arrange
immediate shelter with the tarps we took in, the tin they salvaged and
subsequently the tin we have provided.
Their next concern is the monsoon. They require a more substantial means
of providing a more weather resistance shelter – the tins – but they all seem
to be waiting to see what the ‘rainy’ season’ brings before attempting a longer
and more substantial reconstruction phase. This does make sense, some people
have left the villages to live else-where, some have gone to new locations to
join other family members, others are undecided .. until after the monsoon.
The Monsoon
This will be a
difficult season for many but nature is a tough adversary. If the monsoon is
light then people will be none the wiser as to the security of their
surroundings and the rebuilding process will stall. If the monsoon is heavy
then it will cause damage but at least it will flush out the less stable areas,
help settle the landslips and hopefully give the overall environment a safer
feeling. People will feel more secure in starting to rebuild.
Finance
Up to this point we
have been able to finance all the aid work from the donations we have received
directly from friends and supporters via the Western Union transfers. I believe
the heavy requests for restructuring aid will come in September or after the
monsoon.
One question is going
to be ..what aid do we provide ..materials etc not a problem?
From the damage we
witnessed the former structures seemed lacking in good foundations, wall plates
and tie stones. I’m not suggesting we operate a construction company here but
do we provide the services of a ‘professional building overseer’ .. should this
be part of the criteria for providing financial aid? This all needs timely
management otherwise people will go off half-cocked and have buildings partly
constructed by the time we’re up to speed.
FOR EXAMPLE – we could find an appropriately qualified person
for their own Tamang community and publish the fact that both communities will
be provided with the services of such a person for a month to help give
guidance on ‘earthquake resistant buildings’
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