The UN’s humanitarian boss has said she is “extremely concerned” that Nepal’s customs authorities are slowing the delivery of earthquake aid, as the death toll from the disaster crossed 7,000 yesterday.
After the government ruled out finding more survivors of the April 25 quake buried in the ruins of the capital, Kathmandu, the focus was shifting to delivering aid to families and others in far-flung areas of the devastated nation.
However, UN Undersecretary-General and Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos said she was worried the foreign aid pouring into Nepal was being held up by red tape.
Photo: Reuters
“I was extremely concerned to hear reports that customs was taking such a long time,” Amos said in Kathmandu on Saturday, saying she had asked Nepalese Prime Minister Sushil Koirala to speed up customs clearance for aid materials.
“He has undertaken to ensure that happens, so I hope that from now we will see an improvement in those administrative issues,” Amos said.
Planes loaded with relief supplies from around the world were pouring into Nepal, but there have been numerous reports of many getting stuck at Kathmandu’s small Tribhuvan International Airport, and even customs officials stopping trucks filled with aid from crossing into the country from neighboring India.
Photo: AFP
UN coordinator for Nepal Jamie McGoldrick yesterday said the bottlenecks in aid delivery were slowly disappearing.
“I think the problem is there, but it’s actually diminishing,” he said, adding the Nepalese government eased customs and other bureaucratic hurdles on humanitarian aid following complaints from the UN.
“The government has taken note of some of the concerns that we’ve expressed to them and they’ve addressed those both at customs and the actual handling,” he said.
In the latest blow to relief efforts, Tribhuvan International Airport manager Birendra Prasad Shrestha yesterday said that very heavy planes were being barred from landing because of concerns about the condition of the single runway after the quake and a series of strong aftershocks.
The runway was built to handle only medium-size jetliners and not the large military and cargo planes that have been flying to the airport since the quake struck, he said.
“We have issued a notice saying that aircraft with a total weight exceeding 196 tonnes will not be allowed to land at Kathmandu airport,” Shrestha said. “There are no visible cracks in the runway but there have been so many tremors recently that we have to take precautions — we don’t know what’s happening below the surface.
“This runway is the only lifeline for Kathmandu — if it goes, everything goes,” Shrestha said.
Medium and small-size jets will still be allowed to land, officials said.
Meanwhile, the death toll from the disaster has hit 7,057, including six foreigners and 45 Nepalese found over the weekend in the popular Langtang trekking region, government administrator Gautam Rimal said. The victims included a French national, an Indian, four other foreigners and Nepalese guides, hotel owners, workers and porters.
The entire village of Langtang was wiped out by the avalanche, said Ganga Sagar Pant, the head of the Trekking Agencies Association of Nepal, who has a representative in the area.
“All that is left is scattered belongings like bags and coats, all the houses have been thrown down the mountain,” he said. “There is nothing left. I don’t think anyone can survive that.”
However, a Nepalese Ministry of Home Affairs official yesterday said police and army rescued three people from the rubble in tSindhupalchowk District northeast of Kathmandu, one of the worst-hit areas in the country. No further details were immediately available.
Meanwhile, “rescue operations are still under way, but focus has shifted to providing relief,” ministry spokesman Laxmi Prasad Dhakal said.
“Many far flung villages have been affected,” he said, adding that there was still an “acute shortage” of tents for the hundreds of thousands left homeless.
With relief workers still to reach many areas, the Red Cross has warned of “total devastation” in far-flung areas, including Sindhupalchowk, where whole villages have been destroyed.
The latest UN’s situation report says teams that have arrived in another devastated district, Gorkha, have discovered a “dire need for shelter, particularly tents and blankets.”
“Access to some remote villages remains a key challenge as many landing zones are unsafe due to debris, altitude and current weather conditions,” the report says. “Road access is limited. Some remote villages can only be accessed by helicopters.”
In Kathmandu, tens of thousands of survivors have been living out in the open in the days since the quake, having either lost their homes or fearful that aftershocks could bring teetering buildings to the ground.
The UN says more than 160,000 homes have been destroyed and another 143,000 damaged.
“We are not living in this tent out of choice. We are here because we have nowhere to go,” said Dhiraj Thakur who has been camped out in Tundikhel Maidan, an open area in the center of the city.
Additional reporting by AP and Reuters
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