Heart Breaking photos from the scene of the Nepal Earthquake that has claimed more than 2000 lives

 

This is the heartbreaking moment a Nepalese earthquake victim was dragged to safety after becoming trapped with the lifeless body of his friend.

Weeping with relief, he is pulled from rubble by rescue teams after seeing his home in Swyambhu in the Kathmandu Valley collapse on top of him. At least 2,300 people have been killed in the disaster, with the death toll steadily rising.

In the capital city, the bodies of those buried alive have been laid in the street beneath white sheets. Their grieving relatives have prepared them for cremation, setting up make-shift funeral pyres in the city's open spaces.  

Hundreds are still missing, chief among them climbers stranded on Mount Everest after an avalanche sparked by the tremor buried its base camp on Saturday afternoon. 

This morning survivors told of the terrifying moment the earthquake's aftershock struck this morning. Appealing to the international community via social media, they begged for blood and care packages to sustain the remaining population.

Rescuers said the situation was likely to worsen with scores more bodies discovered every hour across the country. 

'Tragically, more bodies are being pulled from collapsed buildings every hour. Communication is down in many areas. Widespread destruction, rubble and landslides are preventing access to provide aid in many villages,' an Australian Red Cross statement said.

Meanwhile officials fear hospitals may begin running out of crucial supplies at any moment.  

 

'Hospitals were evacuated with patients being treated on the ground outside, homes and buildings demolished and some roads cracked wide open,' said Eleanor Trinchera, Caritas Australia programme coordinator for Nepal, who was an hour outside the capital when the quake struck.

 

A lack of electricity would soon be complicated by a scarcity of water, aid groups said, with medical supplies also dwindling, while Oxfam told AFP morgues were reaching capacity.

 

 

Millions of pounds has been pledged by charities and governments the world over. British, German and French volunteers are among aid workers on their way to help with the crisis. 

 

 

India flew in medical supplies and relief crews, while China sent in a 60-strong emergency team. Relief agencies said hospitals in the Kathmandu Valley were overflowing and running out of medical supplies.

 

A US disaster response team was en route and an initial $1 million in aid to address immediate needs had been authorised, the US Agency for International Development said.

 

 

   

Australia and New Zealand together pledged more than $4.5 million, and said they were working to locate hundreds of their citizens believed to be in Nepal, and South Korea promised $1 million in humanitarian aid.

In the capital, hospital workers stretchered patients out onto the street to treat them as it was too dangerous to keep them indoors. The aftershock rocked buildings in the Indian capital New Delhi and halted the city metro.

Some buildings in Kathmandu toppled like houses of cards, others leaned at precarious angles, and partial collapses exposed living rooms and furniture in place and belongings stacked on shelves.

 

 

 

 

 

Rescuers, some wearing face masks to keep out the dust, scrambled over mounds of splintered timber and broken bricks in the hope of finding survivors. Some used their bare hands to fill small white buckets with dirt and rock.

Thousands of people spent the night outside in chilly temperatures and patchy rain, too afraid to return to their damaged homes or sleep indoors for fear of another tremor. 

Aftershocks from the deadly earthquake have ravaged through the country today. 

When the aftershocks come you cannot imagine the fear... you can hear the women and children crying 

'The aftershocks keep coming ... so people don't know what to expect,'  said Sanjay Karki, Nepal country head for global aid agency Mercy Corps. 

'All the open spaces in Kathmandu are packed with people who are camping outdoors. When the aftershocks come you cannot imagine the fear. You can hear women and children crying.' 

On Sunday, survivors wandered the streets clutching bed rolls and blankets, while others sat in the street cradling their children, surrounded by a few plastic bags of belongings. 

Army officer Santosh Nepal and a group of rescuers worked all night to open a passage into a collapsed building in Kathmandu. They had to use pick axes because bulldozers could not get through the ancient city's narrow streets.

'We believe there are still people trapped inside,' he said, pointing at concrete debris and twisted reinforcement rods where a three-storey residential building once stood.

Among the capital's landmarks destroyed in the earthquake was the 200-foot Dharahara Tower, built in 1832 for the queen of Nepal, with a viewing balcony that had been open to visitors for the last 10 years.

A jagged stump was all that was left of the lighthouse-like structure. As bodies were pulled from the ruins on Saturday, a policeman said up to 200 people had been trapped inside.

Bodies were still arriving on Sunday at one hospital where police officer Sudan Shreshtha said his team had brought 166 corpses overnight.

'Both private and government hospitals have run out of space and are treating patients outside, in the open,' said Nepal's envoy to India, Deep Kumar Upadhyay. Prime Minister Sushil Koirala is back from abroad and will soon address the country.

AS DEATH TOLL RISES TO 2,300 IN 24 HOURS... WHAT HAPPENS NEXT FOR DISASTER STRUCK NEPAL?

With the death toll steadily creeping up (to 2,300 on Sunday morning), the full extent of the horror brought by the earthquake is slowly unfolding. 

As rescuers scramble to save stranded climbers on Mount Everest where 18 died under avalanches yesterday, experts are warning the worst of the disaster is to come. 

Aftershocks rocked the Himalayan country this morning with residents describing the tremors in terrifying detail. 

One registered 6.9 on the Richter Scale and is feared to have triggered yet more avalanches on Everest. 

While the original earthquake's magnitude - 7.9 - labelled it a 'major' incident, it struck just 11km underground, making its effects all the more devastating. 

Coupled with that is its lack of preparation for such destructive tremors. A relatively poor country, its buildings are shoddily constructed and easily torn down. 

Experts also fear the earthquake's shallowness could have sparked landslides across the mountainous region. 

Save the Children's Peter Olyle said hospitals in the Kathmandu Valley were running out of storage room for bodies and emergency supplies. 'There is a need for a government decision on bringing in kits from the military,' he said from Kathmandu.

Police put the death toll in Nepal at 2,152, with 5,463 hurt. At least 700 were killed in the capital, a city of about 1 million people where many homes are old, poorly built and packed close together.

Some 49 people were reported killed in neighbouring India, which has sent military aircraft to Nepal with medical equipment and relief teams. It also said it had dispatched 285 members of its National Disaster Response Force.

In Tibet, the death toll climbed to 17, according to a tweet from China's state news agency, Xinhua. Four people were killed in Bangladesh. 

Pakistan's military is sending four C-130 aircraft with a 30-bed hospital, search and rescue teams and relief supplies, the army said. 

Britain has deployed a team of humanitarian experts to Nepal to provide urgent humanitarian support for people affected by the disaster, International Development Secretary Justine Greening announced last night.

Disaster response specialists, including experts in search and rescue, will travel to Nepal overnight where they will assess the scale of the damage caused by the quake, which destroyed homes, businesses and temples in the capital of Kathmandu.

A separate British search and rescue team of 14 volunteers from Search and Rescue Assistance in Disasters (SARAID), departed for Nepal this morning.

SARAID a charity specialising in rescuing people trapped in collapsed buildings, is taking 1.5 tonnes of equipment including sound and vibration detectors, search cameras and cutting equipment.

Paul Incledon, a 42-year-old firefighter, from Bristol, said the team was able to deal with the emotional strain of working in a disaster zone.

'We will just concentrate and try and block out the grim reality around us,' he said.

'We have medics going along who we can talk to if we need to, but we will try and just get on and look out for each other. When I was in Haiti, with so much death and destruction around, you just become desensitised to it a little and do the job.' 

The team is unsure what to expect when it arrives in Kathmandu, which it plans to access by making an eight-hour journey by road after flying into Bagdogra, a town in northern India.

'The reports are saying Kathmandu is quite intact as a city but we understand the rural areas have seen quite a bit of devastation,' Mr Incledon said.

Roads to Gorkha district, the site of the epicentre, were blocked by landslides, hindering rescue teams, chief district official Prakash Subedi said. Teams were trekking on foot through mountain trails to reach remote villages, and helicopters would also be deployed, he said.

Mukesh Kafle, head of Nepal Electricity Authority, said power had been restored to the main government office, the airport and hospitals. But the damage to the electricity cables and poles was making it difficult to restore power across many parts of the country.

'We have to make sure all cables are secure before turning the power on. Our technicians have been working round the clock to restore power to the people,' he said.  

A rescue operation in the Kalanki neighbourhood of Kathmandu saw police rescuers tried to extricate a man lying under a dead person, crushed by a pile of concrete slabs and iron beams, as his family members watched on in horror.

'We are digging the debris around him, cutting through concrete and iron beams. We will be able to pull him out but his body under his waist is totally crushed. He is still alive and crying for help. We are going to save him,' said police officer Suresh Rai.  

National police spokesman Kamal Singh Ban said the number known to have died in Nepal had risen to 1,953 while officials in India said the toll there now stood at 53. Chinese state media said 17 people had been killed in the Tibet region.  

GOOGLE RELAUNCH 'PERSON FINDER' IN AFTERMATH OF DISASTER 

Google have relaunched their 'person finder' tool to help those affected by the earthquake in Nepal.

The tool is a searchable, online database to help people track down their loved ones who are involved in the disaster.

The 7.8 magnitude earthquake, which killed hundreds and destroyed homes, also damaged communications in the region.

Person Finder collates information from emergency responders and individuals who post details about relatives missing or found.

Within hours of the disaster, 200 names had been uploaded.

The tool was first launched in response to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, and has been used in several major disasters ever since including the 2011 Japanese tsunami and 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

A spokeswoman for Intrepid Travel - which arranges treks in Nepal and around the Everest region - confirmed they had groups with British travellers in the area and said they are still attempting to contact those tours.

The earthquake has also triggered a massive avalanche on Mount Everest killing 18 and injuring at least 30. Several groups of climbers were also said to be trapped at base camp which was severely damaged.

Panicked residents had rushed into the streets as the tremor erupted with the impact felt hundreds of miles away in big swathes of northern India and even in Bangladesh. 

Prime Minister David Cameron pledged that the UK would do all it can to help in the aftermath on the Nepal earthquake.

On Twitter he said: 'Shocking news about the earthquake in Nepal - the UK will do all we can to help those caught up in it.' 

Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, added his condolences and said the British Embassy was providing help to any UK nationals caught up in the disaster.

'My thoughts are with the people of Nepal and everyone affected by the terrible loss of life and widespread damage caused by the earthquake,' he said.

'We are in close contact with the Nepalese government. The British Embassy in Nepal is offering our assistance to the authorities and is providing consular assistance to British Nationals.'  

Labour leader Ed Miliband also expressed his sympathy for all those involved, tweeting: 'The awful scenes in Nepal are heartbreaking. My thoughts go out to the people affected, and to those caring for survivors.' 

Yesterday Vim Tamang, a resident of Manglung village near the epicentre, said: 'Our village has been almost wiped out. Most of the houses are either buried by landslide or damaged by shaking.'All the villagers have gathered in the open area. We don't know what to do. We are feeling helpless.'

A terrified Kathmandu resident said: 'Everything started shaking. Everything fell down. The walls around the main road have collapsed. The national stadiums gates have collapsed,' Kathmandu resident Anupa Shrestha said. 

Indian tourist Devyani Pant was in a Kathmandu coffee shop with friends when 'suddenly the tables started trembling and paintings on the wall fell on the ground. 

The quake's epicentre was 50 miles north-west of Kathmandu and it had a depth of only seven miles, which is considered shallow in geological terms. The shallower the quake, the more destructive power it carries, and witnesses said the trembling and swaying of the earth went on for several minutes.

National radio warned people to stay outdoors and maintain calm because more aftershocks were feared.

A 6.6-magnitude aftershock hit about an hour after the initial quake. But smaller aftershocks continued to arrive every few minutes and residents reported of the ground feeling unstable.

People gathered outside Kathmandu's Norvic International Hospital where doctors and nurses had hooked up some patients to IV drops in the car park or were giving people oxygen. 

A Swedish woman, Jenny Adhikari, who lives in Nepal, told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet that she was riding a bus in the town of Melamchi when the earth began to move.

'A huge stone crashed only about 20 metres from the bus,' she was quoted as saying.

'All the houses around me have tumbled down. I think there are lot of people who have died,' she told the newspaper by telephone. Melamchi is about 30 miles north-east of Kathmandu.  

The earthquake also shook several cities across northern India and was felt as far away as Lahore in Pakistan and Lhasa in Tibet, 340 miles east of Kathmandu and India's capital of New Delhi. The Indian cities of Lucknow in the north and Patna in the east also reported strong tremors. 

Source: Uk Dail Mail

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