#NepalEarthquake- An Experience
Big earthquake of 7.8 Richter scale that occurred in Nepal on 25th April 2015 devastated the lives of many. With countless aftershakes, another big shake of 7.3 Richter scale added to the existing damage in terms of human lives, physical and psychological trauma, with catastrophic feelings and fear of tremors.
Although the intensity of earthquake does not sound big, but the impact of it on Nepal was remarkable. This was contributed by hilly terrain, fading strength of structures, low cost houses with shallow base, weak walls and ceilings. This led to crumbling of old and historical world heritage sites, temples, and houses where as landslides washed off entire villages taking away lives of many.
The survivors who have lost their family members, lost their limbs, sustained severe trauma to acquire neurological deficits such as paralysis say to me during their treatment sessions, “those who lost their lives were lucky”. This is such a heart breaking thing to hear, and you have no words to console them as they have no family members waiting for their arrival, no home to return to, and no normal limbs that could walk them to their desitnations.
Dhulikhel Hospital, where I work at, provide relief packages to the patients during discharge from the hospital. These packages include tent, mat, food etc so that they can survive a few months. But do you really think this will be enough when they have lost so much, and how are they even going to take care of themselves? There is a dire need of shelter for them near a hospital which could offer them free of cost long term rehabilitation, someone to take care of them during their recovery period, someone to feed them with food, someone to share their pain and help ease their psychological distress. If this wishlist of mine are provided to these sufferers, how are hospitals going to rehabilitate these many patients? The hospitals need to strengthen their capacity in terms of human resources and other physical resources to meet the requirements of these needy people who are known to “give all they have”. Now it is our turn to give them what they need, which is what they deserve.
I do not have strength to see them suffer, I neither have can help all of them overcome this aftermath. All I can do is to appeal all living within Nepal (good news is sufferers are very few compared to the non-sufferers) and outside Nepal to help these people in need with all you have to overcome from this time of pain.
The post is written by Saurab Sharma.
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