Rescue operations continue in Nepal: As it happened on Wednesday
By Kamna Arora | Last Updated: Thursday, April 30, 2015 - 00:19
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Zee Media Bureau/Kamna Arora/Tarun Khanna
- US President Barack Obama offered condolence over the Nepal earthquake victims during a telephone conversation with PM Sushil Koirala.
- Under Operation Maitri, India today provided assistance to more foreign nationals. Nine Israelis, two British, one French and one Russians were rescued outside Pokhara by IAF.
- IAF has evacuated150 bodies and rescues 264 people from quake-stricken Nepal.
- As per latest reports, 78 deaths have been reported so far in India - 58 in Bihar, 16 in Uttar Pradesh, 3 in West Bengal and 1 in Rajasthan.
- Many people, who injured in Nepal earthquake, may have permanent disabilities if they are not treated quickly and given proper care and rehabilitation, aid workers were quoted as saying by Reuters.
- As the supplies for earthquake victims in Nepal are running short, people clashed with police and seized supplies of bottled water in Kathmandu.
- According to PTI, the East Central Railway (ECR) zone has issued "zero value tickets" to 7,000 victims to send them to their destinations without fare.
- Assam Government has constituted a special disaster management team for extending services to the quake-hit people from the state in Nepal.
- Over 6,000 bodies have so far been pulled out from under mounds of debris and rubble left by razed homes and buildings, Nepal's Deputy Prime Minister Bam Dev Gautam was quoted as saying by PTI.
- People in relief camps protested against Nepal Prime Minister Sushil Koirala for not getting enough aid. Meanwhile, Koirala told them that he had come to see for himself the difficult situation Nepal is facing and assured them that help would reach them at the earliest.
- Rajasthan government has evacuated 123 people who were stranded in earthquake-ravaged Nepal.
- A joint rescue team of the Nepalese Army, the Armed Police Force and Nepal Police have rescued 1,600 tourists from Manang and Mustang and brought them to Pokhara.
- Mountain bikers have come forward to raise funds for the relief work in Nepal, IANS reported.
- Nepal's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs Bamdev Gautam and Ambassador of India to Nepal Ranjit Rae survey joint rescue efforts by their countries.
- In a piece of bad news for people in quake-stricken Nepal, researchers at the University of Michigan have now warned that the threat of landslides and mudslides remains high in the Himalayan nation in the coming weeks, and the risk is likely to increase when the monsoon rains arrive this summer.
Also Read: Quake-hit Nepal at high risk of landslides in coming weeks - Trekkers stranded by an avalanche in Nepal, many of them from Israel, are fighting for food and places on rescue helicopters after being denied shelter by locals in the aftermath of the earthquake.
Also Read: Avalanche-hit Nepal trekkers fight to get on rescue flights - India's Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup said that more Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation are en route to Nepal.
- Morocco has decided to provide USD 1 million in emergency assistance to the earthquake victims in Nepal.
Also Read: Morocco pledges $1 mn in relief to quake-ravaged Nepal - Southern Indian state of Kerala announces contribution of Rs 2 crore to quake-hit Nepal.
Also Read: Kerala to contribute Rs 2 crore to Nepal - Nepal denies permission to a French military plane carrying relief supplies and medical charity workers to land. As per a senior UN official, Nepal has told foreign search and rescue teams not to come because there are already enough in the earthquake-hit country.
- Nepal has declined help from Taiwan and New Zealand. Notably, the Himalayan nation has already requested friendly nations to seek its prior approval before sending aid.
Also Read: Nepal declines help from Taiwan, New Zealand - Defence Ministry spokesperson Sitanshu Kar shares a picture of Army Aviation Corps reaching out to difficult terrain with relief material in Nepal.
- Rescue teams have still not reached some of the worst-affected areas of Lamjung, the site of Nepal quake's epicentre.
- A Nepali-French search and rescue team on Tuesday pulled a 28-year-old man, Rishi Khanal, from a collapsed apartment block in Kathmandu after he had spent around 80 hours in a room with three dead bodies. Khanal drank urine to survive as he had no access to food or water during his ordeal.
Also Read: Nepal quake: When a man drank urine to stay alive for three days under rubble - Nepal's authorities are facing the daunting task of tackling post-quake challenges like spread of diseases and rehabilitation.
Till now, 15 Indians have died in Nepal earthquake.
- The number of people killed in Nepal by the Himalayan country`s worst earthquake in eight decades has risen to 5,006, a Home Ministry official said.
- India has sent Army's Gorkha soldiers to quake-hit Nepal to help in relief and rescue work, an official tweet said.
Also Read: India sends Gorkha soldiers to Nepal - Nepalese riot police is struggling to hold back thousands of residents trying to leave Kathmandu as anger mounted at the lack of buses being laid on by the authorities.
Also Read: Riot police battle to contain crowds trying to leave Kathmandu - Nepal's Kathmandu and Sindhupalchowk districts, among the worst hit, have reported 1,039 and 1,176 deaths respectively. The situation is almost equally worrisome in Nuwakot (478), Dhading (303), Gorkha (256), Rasuwa (250), Kavre (248), Bhaktpur (243), Lalitpur (159), Dolakha (50).
Also Read: Nepal earthquake - Helpline numbers
- Three main power sub-stations in Kathmandu have been partially restored.
- In a bid to help evacuees, Indian Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu said that a reservation counter has been opened at T3, Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi to provide immediate rail tickets to Nepal quake survivors.
Also Read: Rail tickets at Delhi airport for Nepal evacuees - Thousands of people from Kathmandu are queuing in major outgoing points since Wednesday morning as the fear of quake still looms large.
- Some shops opened this morning and vehicles were also plying on the road in Nepal. Electricity is restored after four days and telephones are working. But some essential supplies like drinking water, dry food and milk are not available in the market.
Also Read: Life slowly moving to normalcy in Kathmandu - India's Cabinet Secretary will chair a meeting of the National Crisis Management Committee at 11 am today to review rescue and relief operations in quake-hit areas.
- The Indian Air Force has stepped up rescue sorties in Nepal.
- Defence Ministry spokesperson Sitanshu Kar said 314 evacuees arrived in India from Nepal this morning.
- The United Nations is releasing USD 15 million from its emergency fund to help relief efforts while the World Food Programme said it aimed to get food aid to 1.4 million people over the next three months.
- UN aid chief Valerie Amos will spend three days in Nepal from Thursday to "show solidarity with the Nepalese people, raise the visibility of the crisis and assess the response operations," UN spokesman Farhan Haq said.
- Australia said it was raising its level of aid to USD 4.7 million and sending a military plane to bring in relief supplies and evacuate stranded citizens.
- Nepalese official Uddav Prasad Bhattarai said 250 people were feared missing after an avalanche on Tuesday on the popular Langtang trekking route.
- In Gorkha, one of the worst-hit districts, terrified residents were seen running with outstretched arms towards an Indian Army helicopter to plead for food and water.
- The United Nations estimates that eight million people had been affected.
- In a televised address late Tuesday, Koirala declared three days of national mourning for the 5,057 people known to have perished in Nepal alone. Around 8,000 people have been injured. Among the dead were 18 climbers who were at Mount Everest base camp when an avalanche triggered by the quake flattened everything in its path.
- As Nepal's Prime Minister Sushil Koirala said getting help to remote areas was a "major challenge", aid finally began reaching areas that had to fend for themselves since Saturday`s 7.8-magnitude quake.
- Hungry and desperate villagers rushed towards relief helicopters in remote areas of Nepal on Tuesday, begging to be airlifted to safety, four days after a monster earthquake killed more than 5,000 people.
Source: http://zeenews.india.com/news/south-asia/rescue-operations-continue-in-nepal-as-it-happened-on-wednesday_1586821.html
