By Jesse Pesta and Niharika Mandhana
KATMANDU, Nepal--Fear of aftershocks sent thousands here into
the streets overnight, huddled under plastic tarps as rain fell on
the capital and hampered efforts to find survivors after the
Himalayan nation's most devastating earthquake in roughly 80
years.
More than 2,400 people were confirmed dead after Saturday's
7.8-magnitude quake, which rippled across a broad swath of Nepal,
damaging the historic heart of Katmandu, flattening remote villages
and triggering an avalanche on Mount Everest.
"It's a very desperate situation," a spokesman for Nepal's
national police, Kamal Singh Bam, said Sunday. "The death toll is
very high and it will go up even more. Rescue operations are slow
because we don't have all the proper facilities."
The scale of the disaster poses a major challenge for the
government of Nepal, one of the world's poorest and least-developed
countries. Large parts of Nepal grapple with chronic electricity
shortages, and outages are common even in the capital.
"It will take many months just to get back to normalcy," said
Krishna Prasad Dhakal, deputy chief of mission at Nepal's embassy
in New Delhi.
Saturday became the deadliest single day recorded on Mount
Everest after a rush of ice and snow swept through the base camp
where climbers were preparing to ascend, killing 17 people,
according to the Nepal Mountaineering Association. Among them was
Dan Fredinburg, a U.S.-based engineer for Google Inc. Three other
Google employees on Everest were safe, the company said.
On Sunday, a large aftershock--strong enough to shake buildings
700 miles away in the Indian capital of New Delhi--sowed panic and
caused more destruction and injury, police and witnesses said.
In Katmandu and the surrounding valley, home to more than 2.5
million people, residents flooded streets and parks for fear of
being crushed indoors if another aftershock hit overnight.
Hospitals in the area were stretched thin and desperate for
supplies.
The Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital near Katmandu's
diplomatic enclave was overflowing with people. Patients were laid
out on straw mats and sofa cushions, squeezed in between people in
regular hospital beds. One elderly patient was curled up on the
bare floor. Two other patients shared a stretcher, sleeping
head-to-toe.
"We are running out of IV fluids and we don't have enough beds,"
said Ramesh Maharjan, an emergency-medicine physician at the
hospital. "We don't have enough operating rooms" to handle
surgeries needed for patients with serious spinal and head
injuries.
Dozens of patients slept in makeshift tents pitched in front of
the Om Hospital and Research Centre. "I wanted to come out here
because we feared the quake would repeat," said Hyat Mohammad, who
suffered a broken hip.
Others camped out on the hospital porch or bedded down on the
floor of the entrance hall. One family was wrapped in a
pink-and-purple blanket emblazoned with the words "Best Wishes."
One woman suffered two broken legs after her stone house collapsed
on top of her.
By Sunday night, the official police death toll in Nepal stood
at 2,482, but officials said they expected it to rise as search
teams reached more-remote areas. More than 6,100 people were
injured. The quake's damage reached across Nepal's borders into
India, where 60 were killed, and China, which reported 20
deaths.
Aid from neighboring India and China began pouring in over the
weekend, and the U.S. Agency for International Development said it
was deploying a team of humanitarian specialists and rescue
workers.
But progress was hard to gauge, given the scope of the damage,
said Mr. Bam, the police spokesman. Nepalese army and police teams
focused on the Katmandu Valley, and it could be days before rescue
specialists reached remote and mountainous areas, he said.
Near the quake's epicenter in Gorkha, about 50 miles northwest
of Katmandu, thousands of homes and most of the district's schools
were destroyed, said Uddav Timilsina, the chief district officer.
"We are getting reports that 10 people are missing here, 50 people
are missing there," Mr. Timilsina said. "But it is very, very
difficult to say what is actually the situation on the ground."
Large parts of his district remained cut off. Landslides blocked
roads and endangered rescue teams. "Phone lines are down, there is
no access, we don't have any data from there right now," he
said.
In a tent village in Tundi Khel field, a military parade ground
in Katmandu, a couple dozen people sheltered under a red sheet of
plastic propped up by waist-high sticks. Rows of makeshift tents
stretched across the field.
Laxmi Shahi cradled her squalling 2-year-old son, Rashil, in her
arms. "He doesn't like it," said Ms. Shahi.
In Durbar Square, where several historic wooden structures
collapsed, people gathered around bonfires, chatting and drying
their clothes late Sunday night after a drenching rain.
"There's no Internet working, so Nepalese people listen to the
radio and we get the news by translation," said a French
tourist.
On Saturday, Sushil Chaudhari, a 42-year-old human-rights
activist in Katmandu, said he watched in horror as the nine-story
Dharahara tower in Katmandu's center collapsed with his wife's
16-year-old nephew inside.
When the quake hit, "there was no time to think or react. It
just fell, just like that," Mr. Chaudhari said. "I was paralyzed,
people were screaming. I saw people die right in front of my
eyes."
Mr. Chaudhari found his young relative's body buried under
broken bits of the tower.
Historic neighborhoods of Nepal's capital were among the most
damaged parts of the city, as some of the country's oldest
buildings crumbled, leaving piles of old bricks. Katmandu and its
suburbs are full of historical sites, including temples, palaces
and courtyards, many of them more than 300 years old. Seven areas
of the Katmandu Valley are protected as a Unesco World Heritage
site.
The quake struck in what is known as the Indus-Yarlung suture
zone, where the Indian subcontinent meets the Eurasian tectonic
plate. The collision of the two, 40 million to 50 million years
ago, gave rise to the Himalayas.
It is an area that has been the site of some of the region's
deadliest earthquakes, including one in Kashmir in 2005 that killed
more than 80,000 people. A massive earthquake also struck Nepal in
1934, causing mass casualties.
Besides China and India, other Asian countries, including Japan,
Singapore and Malaysia, are sending search-and-rescue teams to
Nepal. South Korea offered $1 million in emergency relief aid,
while Taiwan pledged $300,000.
Raymond Zhong and Krishna Pokharel contributed to this
article.
Write to Niharika Mandhana at niharika.mandhana@wsj.com and
Krishna Pokharel at krishna.pokharel@wsj.com
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