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The clock is ticking for quake-hit Nepal

KATHMANDU – When people are stripped of their possessions by the indiscriminate fury of Mother Nature it can manifest a whole array of human reactions. They cower and become shadows of their former selves or get very angry, even violent; or they display the best facets of the indefatigable human spirit.

Remember the stoic queues of Japanese quake and tsunami survivors in the Tohoku? Cast your mind back beyond the western headlines about rioting in Tacloban after Typhoon Haiyan and recall the footage of Filipinos queueing in orderly lines at banks, shops and aid distribution centres.

Asia is home to an average of 75 per cent of the world’s natural disasters annually and while covering the worst of them, I have seen all these responses. But the overwhelming reactions I’ve seen represent the very best of the human condition.

Right now in Nepal, there may be anger at a perceived lack of government leadership by the tens of thousands displaced by the quake but that has not yet translated into civil unrest.

Photo: Steven Clark/ Channel NewsAsia
Swayambhu ruins. Photo: Steven Clark/Channel NewsAsia
Nepalese stand around in wait of more bodies to be found. Photo: Steven Clark/Channel NewsAsia

Within 48 hours of the quake some 5,000 people had made an army camp ground in central Kathmandu their home.  My crew and I went there overnight and were simply stunned by the sight of hundreds of ad-hoc tarpaulins stretching across the length and breadth of the massive field.

We made our way to the bleechers – where I’d imagine the upper echelons of the army and society would sit for occasional displays of national pride – and every inch of the four sets of bleechers was covered by people trying to keep warm on that 12°C night.

Ms Mamta Rauniyar’s mother had survived the quake but died from exposure the previous night as the temperature fell to as low as 3°C. Fifty-five members of her extended family remain to share the same small green tarpaulin near the bleechers.

She told me: “Our government has not come to see, in our camp how you people are. That you are dying living or taking food or not.” I wondered how much more she could take, how many others felt the same way she did; and how long their patience would last.

All four sets of bleechers at the Thundikhel camp was crowded with people trying to keep warm. Photo: Steven Clark/Channel NewsAsia
Hundreds of ad-hoc tarpaulins stretching across a field at Thundikhel. Photo: Steven Clark/Channel NewsAsia
Women camping out in a tarpaulin at Thundikhel. Photo: Steven Clark/Channel NewsAsia

So when we received news about reports of trouble and perhaps even a riot at Kathmandu’s central bus station or “Buspark” in the quake ravaged part of town called Gonga Bu we took it very seriously.

My crew and I charged in to cover and verify whatever was actually going on. Upon our arrival some 30 minutes later, we found out that riot police had essentially been deployed for crowd control.

There was no unrest but three bus ticket agents were arrested for jacking up the prices to extortionate rates. The police also had to make sure people were not buying one ticket and using it for two people.

There was desperate opportunism, but no riot.

The Kathmandu exodus was on the whole comprised of people from outlying areas who had moved to the capital to find work. Now they were worried about not being able to contact their families and as one woman told me: “I want to work but the hotel where I’m employed is broken so what to do?” 

At the Kathmandu’s central bus station or “Buspark” in the quake ravaged part of town called Gonga Bu. Photo: Steven Clark/Channel NewsAsia
People pile on any kind of transportation they can find to try to make their way back to the outlying areas of Kathmandu where their hometowns are. Photo: Steven Clark/Channel NewsAsia

We gained exclusive access to an Armed Police Force patrol that took us through some of the worst affected neighbourhoods. Travelling with members of Singapore-based Corporate Citizen Foundation (CCF), a Swift Entry & Evaluation Deployment partner of MediaCorp, we chanced upon the discovery of three bodies.

Battered, mangled and twisted, the bodies of a mother, father and young son were lying face down on an exposed piece of land. My sense of smell was once again bombarded with that sadly familiar odour I last experienced in the Philippines – the stench of death.

The bodies were quite badly decomposed and the scene was abuzz with flies. The recovery team repeatedly sprayed the bodies with insecticide but the flies continued coming. CCF’s Hassan Ahmad grabbed three body bags and gave them to the recovery team, some of whom didn’t even have latex gloves.

A line of string had been drawn up about waste height to keep onlookers from getting too close but was proving about as effective as the insecticide being sprayed on the bodies to repel the flies.

When the body of the father was turned over, several onlookers started to wail, some went silent, shocked by the sight of the bulging eyes on a bloated and blackened face, and others ran away.

This was not the peaceful, natural death of an old relative in a bed.

This was a scene of a violent death where in one horrific moment, the lives and dreams of a young family were snuffed out.

My news team bore witness to that pitiful scene and as we drove away in a noticeably quieter police jeep, we had the same thought on our minds: How many more bodies will be found and bagged in this way? And how many more will remain beyond discovery?

We realised there was an increasingly harrowing story emerging from the more remote rural areas and committed ourselves to finding out just how bad the situation was in a district called Sindhupalckok north of Kathmandu and near to the China border.

Securing a 4x4 vehicle was a stroke of luck – We’d heard that bidding wars had erupted between news agencies for such vehicles – and we packed our survival gear, food, water and equipment and headed north on narrow but good roads through Nepal’s famously mountainous terrain.

In Sindhupalchok we drove through village after village. The usual refrain from local villagers was that 95 per cent of the buildings had been rendered unlivable and no aid had reached them. 

Collapsed buildings at Chautara. Photo: Steven Clark/Channel NewsAsia

The headquarters of Sindhupalchok District, Chautara, was in very bad shape. It is essentially a linear town with one main road running through it. Both sides of the road were devastated. Some of its 5,000-plus residents risked life and limb combing through what remained of their houses for precious possessions and to find missing family members.

In Melchowr which is near to Chautara, Mr Raje told me the village had received one tarpaulin: “One tarpaulin for 3,000 people. Is that really any kind of relief?”

Mr Raje in Melchowr. Photo: Steven Clark/Channel NewsAsia

Ms Sushma Shresti invited us to the tarpaulin she had been living under and offered us tea. This woman who had nothing was offering us tea!

Over tea, she remarked that the situation was all so strange. It something she expected to see on TV happening in places like Japan and Indonesia, not in her country, and not to her family.

She knows it’s only a matter of time before the spectre of the usual post-disaster diseases like dysentery start to claim more victims. Looking at her one-month-old baby, her voice became very serious as she told us that swine flu had already been reported in the area.

She was the third person to tell share that information with us.

The nights are chilly at Chautara. Photo: Steven Clark/Channel NewsAsia
A severely-injured girl at the hospital. Photo: Steven Clark/Channel NewsAsia

In sharp contrast to the countryside, the Kathmandu campsite, which we had visited on April 28, had been transformed into a professionally managed site by the army.

Latrines had been freshly dug on one side of the camp and fresh water sources had been established at the other. The camp featured best-quality army tents that were cleaned twice daily. The residents, numbering 2,000 to 2,500 instead of the 5,000 earlier, were given regular food and water rations. 

Aid workers told us time and again that tarpaulins, medicines and water will be the most crucial relief supplies in Nepal. Now it’s just a question of getting it to the all the people of Nepal.

The hope is that more countries can commit to help transport the aid clogging up Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International airport to the rural areas. The US, for instance, has committed four V-22 tilt rotor Osprey aircraft, several Huey choppers two KC-130s and four C17 Globemasters.

And with the international NGOs having completed their assessment reports, perhaps impatience from observers like you and me – provoked by media tales of relief inefficiencies – will quieten and the needs of those who have faced their desperation with dignity will finally be met. 

Steven Clark reporting from Nepal.

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