Search and rescue efforts after an earthquake in Nepal wrapped up yesterday as the focus shifted to providing relief to survivors awaiting food and shelter, officials said 36 hours after the disaster struck.
At least 157 people were killed in isolated western districts of the Himalayan country when a magnitude 5.6 earthquake hit late on Friday.
Many survivors spent the night under the open sky, their mud houses reduced to piles of rubble.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Several people died in the village of Nalgad, in the worst-hit Jajarkot district, where Mahesh Chanare prepared to cremate his father-in-law yesterday.
“The rest of my family is safe,” the 34-year-old plumber said.
“But the houses have buried everything with them, there is hardly anything to eat,” he added. “No relief materials have reached us. People here desperately need food and tents.”
Altogether 105 people died in Jajarkot and another 52 in neighboring Rukum district, officials said that search and rescue operations had been concluded. “We are in touch with all areas and rescue operations have wrapped up,” said provincial police spokesman Gopal Chandra Bhattarai. “But we are still on alert as this is a remote area and there might be some isolated areas from where information has not flowed.”
Harish Chandra Sharma, a Jajarkot district official, said the focus was now on providing relief to the victims.
“It has been a tough night and we are trying to get relief materials to those affected by the quake,” Sharma said. “Some have been distributed but we need to reach all areas.”
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