The Earthquake and the aftermath: A reflection

link to a video about how you can help
link to the official donation page
(please specify in the bank transfer narrative that you would like to donate to the "Dashinkali earthquake rebuilding project")

It was just another regular day. I was sitting in class wondering what to eat for lunch when suddenly the room started shuddering. At first I didn't know what was happening but then one of my classmates shouted “earthquake” and we all scrambled outside. The ground was swaying and all the buildings were shaking. I was too shocked to be afraid. A piece of the temple fell off and the wall toppled over. I could hear people screaming from the village. The first earthquake lasted for about two minutes. Once the ground was relatively steady again, we all went up to the football field. The entire village was all standing there; the buildings looked relatively unscathed and the people unharmed. As Pharping sits on a large rock face, the tremor wasn't so severe, nobody was killed. While we were sitting there, I checked my twitter feed and saw that the 7.9 magnitude earthquake had gone viral, every news station was talking about it and shocking pictures of the damage were all over the internet. As the hours passed more tremors occurred at regular intervals and the death toll went from a few hundred to thousands with many still stuck under the rubble with nothing to do but die slowly of their injures with no one to help them.

We slept in the library that first night. I woke up to a bang and people screaming all around me. I've never been afraid for my life before but in that moment this panic came over me and I had ran halfway across the yard before I realized I was screaming. One of the women who I was studying with had tripped over someone while trying to get out and cut her lip and gave herself a huge black eye. We all eventually fell asleep but were woken several times to more tremors and I woke up the next morning feeling exhausted and afraid. We spent the morning cleaning up and buying provisions for the upcoming days. There were several other lesser tremors during the morning, each one making my heart race but now the feeling of the earth moving beneath our feel had become a regular thing. The radio was predicting another earthquake so many of us were too afraid to go inside even to go to the bathroom and to grab a few things.

The thing people never usually talk about is the waiting. The waiting and hearing about all the horrific things happening around you with nothing you can do. All transport to kathmandu had been closed off so we had no way of helping them to move the rubble and even if we could, most of the people were already dead anyway. About 1 o'clock another earthquake struck this time with a magnitude of 6.9 meaning that many more houses collapsed and there was even less shelter for people and more and more families were out on the street with no clothes, food or water not knowing if their loved ones were alive or dead. The phone lines kept cutting out meaning that people couldn't contact their loved ones and even if they could, there are many parts of Nepal with no roads and no phone reception so they are unreachable. We have gathered as much clothes, blankets and medicinal supplies as we can spare and have been distributing them to people in need in the surrounding area. This brings me to the most important part of this post, how you can help the people recover from this monstrous disaster. As Kathmandu is the capital of Nepal and also the most severely affected, most of the foreign aid and donations are going there. This is very good of course however it means that many of the smaller towns are neglected and left to rebuild their lives for themselves. Fortunately there is a strong sense of community in these towns and this means that they are very willing to help each other. Even though Pharping was not so badly affected, the neighboring village of Jultiki, Dakshinkali-9 was badly damaged.

Out of the 95 houses, over 82 have completely collapsed leaving the inhabitants with nowhere to stay. This is a problem for several reasons; not only does it mean that they are homeless but also they have nowhere to go during the monsoon which leaves them even more danger of falling sick from the many infectious diseases that will spread through the water such as cholera, diphtheria and typhus. You can help them by donating to the “Dolpu Tulku Charitable Foundation” who have set up a trust fund in order for the community to be able to build temporary houses in the next few weeks and then to create new buildings that are completely earthquake proof after the monsoon. I can assure you in all honesty that this is a legitimate project where all the money will go to those in need as I personally know the people organising this project. Not only that, but several people who I have been studying with these past months will be staying on to aid in the reconstruction process.

here is a video where you can see how you can help

here is is a Link where you can donate. Please donate what you can every cent makes a difference. Please make sure you specify in the bank transfer narrative you would like the money to go to the "Dashingkali earthquake rebuilding project" Thank you

one of the many make-shift shelters