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Aftershocks terrify survivors of Nepal quake (w/video)

 
Family members break down during the cremation of an earthquake victim in Bhaktapur near Kathmandu, Nepal, Sunday, April 26, 2015. A strong magnitude 7.8 earthquake shook Nepal's capital and the densely populated Kathmandu Valley before noon Saturday, causing extensive damage with toppled walls and collapsed buildings, officials said. [Associated Press]
Family members break down during the cremation of an earthquake victim in Bhaktapur near Kathmandu, Nepal, Sunday, April 26, 2015. A strong magnitude 7.8 earthquake shook Nepal's capital and the densely populated Kathmandu Valley before noon Saturday, causing extensive damage with toppled walls and collapsed buildings, officials said. [Associated Press]
Published April 27, 2015

KATHMANDU, Nepal — Each time this city shuddered with aftershocks from the earthquake that convulsed Nepal, Dr. 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, 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," Gautam said as he worked through exhaustion inside the emergency ward of Bir Hospital in Kathmandu, where he had been since soon after the magnitude 7.8 earthquake hit Saturday and killed more than 3,200 people in Nepal. "But the most worrying thing to me is the aftereffect. Sanitation, disease, these are also serious worries."

By sunrise today, when the extent of the devastation and death was still unclear, it was that uncertainty, with what the earthquake had wrought and what the future might hold, that spread fear and anxiety across Nepal. The true extent of disasters, like that which 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.

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, Kathmandu, 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 3,218 people, officials said today, 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.

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. Even getting aid-and-relief workers into Kathmandu 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.

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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, 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," he said.

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.

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.

Across Kathmandu, 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 Kathmandu 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 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. "I thought I had died," she said.