Thousands of Nepalese still living in tents months after a massive earthquake are facing a desperate winter, because of a fuel crisis and bickering politicians’ failure to spend a US$4.1 billion reconstruction fund.
Eight months after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake killed almost 8,900 people and destroyed about half a million homes, thousands of survivors are bracing for the Himalayan winter without proper clothes, bedding or shelter. In the remote village of Philim, close to the quake’s epicenter in western Nepal, the disaster reduced the school’s dormitory to rubble, forcing about 200 children to take refuge in tents.
The flimsy structures offer little protection against bone-chilling winds that whip through the village where overnight temperatures are about 2°C and are set to fall further.
“It gets so cold at night, I wish we had thicker blankets,” Dawa Phunchok Lama, 12, told reporters.
Many of the children live hours away from Philim but are staying in the tents because they can no longer commute from their homes after quake-triggered landslides blocked hillside trails.
“We have limited food stocks — no vegetables, enough lentils to last a week, cooking oil for 10 days perhaps. But most of all, I worry about the cold and its impact on my kids,” school headmaster Mukti Adhikari said. “It’s too difficult for them to go home, so we keep them here... but now I am worried they will freeze to death since no one has adequate clothing or proper bedding.”
After the April 25 quake, Nepal’s shell-shocked government implored foreign donors to fund recovery efforts and vowed swift reconstruction.
However, its failure to establish the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) has delayed the start of rebuilding, meaning thousands are still homeless. Aid workers are now scrambling to deliver emergency supplies before snowfall shuts access to villages such as Philim.
“We are closing in on a deadline — we are aware that a day will come soon when we won’t be able to go up those trails,” World Food Programme country director and representative in Nepal Pippa Bradford said.
However, severe fuel shortages have hamstrung their race against time, with hundreds of trucks carrying gasoline and other vital supplies stuck at the border between Nepal and India.
Ethnic minority protesters have blocked a major checkpoint for more than 10 weeks to demand changes to the nation’s new constitution.
Movement of cargo through other checkpoints has also slowed to a crawl, prompting Nepal to accuse India, which has criticized the charter, of enforcing an “unofficial blockade” — a charge New Delhi denies.
“Currently, our fuel supplies amount to less than a quarter of our needs and we are facing a backlog on deliveries,” Bradford told reporters. “It’s a tragedy — our winter supplies are sitting in warehouses, they are going to be of no use if we don’t get them up the mountains in time.”
Damaged households have so far received just US$150 each in compensation, while the government has promised an additional US$2,000 once the reconstruction authority is set up and able to disburse funds.
According to experts, a major reason for the delay is jostling by the Communist Party of Nepal and opposition Nepali Congress to see their preferred candidate head the new body.
“The political parties seem more interested in horse-trading on influential positions than in getting on with rebuilding,” EU Ambassador to Nepal Rensje Teerink told reporters.
Some frustrated donors, such as the Asian Development Bank, have ignored misgivings and pressed on without waiting for the reconstruction agency, which is to be charged with overseeing the rebuilding in a country plagued with corruption. The Asian Development Bank has decided to go ahead with giving US$90 million of its US$600 million pledge to the Nepalese government to rebuild schools, Nepal Resident Mission of the Asian Development Bank director Kenichi Yokoyama said.
“We would have preferred to work with the NRA so it could monitor the process and speed up decision making,” Yokoyama said. “But there is an urgent need to rebuild the country and we simply cannot wait any longer.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese