DAY 18: Another quake

Another quake of 7.4 hit Nepal today... We're okay, so is our house, but dozens died and many more houses were destroyed... Sigh...

Though it looks like in Kathmandu, it will have limited damage, the effect was very strongly psychological. Where everybody had started hoping it was finished and winding down, we were suddenly thrown back. A lot of people were traumatized during the last quake and this brings it all back. I saw a little girl who insisted her parents carry her everywhere, she didn't trust the soil anymore. And who can blame her, if a big one could come now, why not in a week's time, or a month's time. Depressing thought.


When this last quake hit, I was with a colleague visiting from Belgium, Jeroen, eating lunch on the rooftop terrace in a more traditional restaurant in Kirtipur, a village on top of a nearby hill of Kathmandu. Just when I was to receive the change from the bill, there was a tremor. Since we had had so many small aftershocks, at first, I didn't really react. But the shaking grew both in strength and sound. The glasses tinkered together. The waiter quickly shoved the change in my hand and said urgently: earthquake, earthquake, beckoning us to go out with him. Having recently learned that stairs are the last place you want to be during an earthquake (more people get injured trying to run away than in collapsing buildings - for more tips, here), I stayed and invited Jeroen to join me under a strong beam (we should have probably moved a couple of steps further, out to the terrace). It didn't last so long, maybe 30 seconds. We walked down and I was estimating it at a 5.0 something. There were some dust clouds on the horizons, probably houses which collapsed. We climbed to the top to get an overview of the city (Kirtipur is famous for the view of Kathmandu), but nothing stood out. Slowly though, through my messages with others, it became apparent it was another big one. With the internet coming and going, I quickly send out an email to my colleagues saying we were fine and posted something on Facebook (so useful for let most people know in one stroke I'm okay, these days, especially with the safe check feature).

Since we had rented a car for the day, we drove around to check on the damage to Ramkot, just outside of Kathmandu, which had been severely hit during the first quake. The road going there was very congested, with many cars at a standstill. Our driver was listening to the radio, and more and more details were confirming it had been a bad one. 7.4 on Richter scale, and to the east of Nepal this time, in an area already quite severely hit, Sindupalchow. When we got to Ramkot, people were all in the streets, wandering around. Sometimes it was hard to tell whether the damage was new or or from the previous quake.

Crooked houses in Ramkot.

Some of the youth, not necessarily homeless but sleeping outside playing cards...

We walked around a bit and meanwhile, I was getting more and more updates on how bad the quake had been. Our colleagues reacted, letting us know they appreciated my mail and that we were safe, but still with concerns how we were doing. We stood outside an evacuated hospital, where the patients had been rolled outside of the building, many looking dazed and confused again.

We left, heading slowly back towards the city center. I contacted Thomas and we dropped by the Yellow House to see whether our car could be useful to transport material or blessed people somewhere. There was news of a hospital that had collapsed somewhere, but it had already been evacuated. Jeroen wanted to check on his flight back to Belgium that evening and whether it would be cancelled, so we went back to the house to use the internet. Everybody there was okay and the house was still fine (I hand't been too worried, but it was still reassuring). We were a bit concerned about Allen, who had left that day on a relief mission to Sindupalchow, the most affected area but he arrived a couple of hours later, as his team decided to return because of the danger of landslides.

Apparently, the airport had only been closed for a couple of hours, so Jeroen's flight would probably be delayed but not cancelled, though he might miss his connection. The Yellow House group called for a 5pm meeting, but nothing really came out of it. Sometimes it seems to me that these emergency situations are times you spend waiting a lot. Another volunteer needed a lift to the airport and since no taxis and buses were circulating, she went with Jeroen to the airport, after a hastily cooked pasta-pesto, which has become our standard emergency dish.

That night we slept very poorly, with several aftershocks waking us up. In total, there were 20 aftershocks in the 24h following the bigger one. Needless to say it is draining...

I also got a call from a team coming from our WSM partner in Bangladesh, GK, who has many Nepali medical students and organized a mission with some supplies and volunteers. They would be arriving the next day and asked whether they could store some of the supplies at our house, which I of course agreed to...