It was a beautiful afternoon. We had spent the morning helping a small village begin to clean up the rubble from the April 25th 7.9 earthquake that had leveled 90% of their community. As we were hiking into the village, almost every home we passed had damage of some sort. For some families, their home was standing but covered in cracks, for others, all that was left was a pile of rubble. It was sad to see the devastation but I was excited to help these people begin to put the pieces of their life back together.
We had just eaten lunch with some folks in the village and were resting in the shade of some Bammbo on a steep mountain slope when the earth began to shake. We had gotten used to the small aftershocks but this wasn’t an aftershock. For 15-20 seconds the ground shock with tremendous force. I had never felt the ground move like that. I could hear the trees shaking, rocks falling, homes collapsing, people yelling. The ground seemed to grown with a loud rawer, I had never heard anything like it.
After the ground stopped shaking, we heard lots of yelling from the valley bellow us. Once we made sure everyone close to us was ok, a group of us headed down the valley to see if people needed help. Fortunately, no one in the village was physically hurt. We ran back up to where we had been camping and immediately began breaking down camp to hike to safer ground. The mountain side was in danger of slipping.
In the first hour after the quake we felt 10 aftershocks each one stronger than a 6 on the Richter scale. By the end of the night we had experienced 15 aftershocks. We hiked up the mountain and were fortunate to find a safe place to set up camp. As some people began to make arrangements for us to get off the mountain, some of us went to another village to see if we could help. We had heard that there were at least 100 people injured and 200 missing. A hotel in the village had been shook off the mountainside with everyone in it.
We were the first non-Nepali people to get to the village, the Nepali army and Red Cross got there a few hours later. The destruction was unbelievable. The street with the hotel had survived the April 25th quake, but the May 12th quake had leveled it. There wasn’t a home or building standing. Cars that had been parked on the street were crushed by bricks and rock. Homes had fallen down the mountainside, taking out those bellow it. Newer homes had completely separated from their foundations or were covered in stress cracks. There were few people in the streets. Those that were in the streets were busy trying to salvage their life from the ruins of their homes.
We got to the destroyed hotel and no one was there. The hotel itself had seperated from its foundation and was scattered bellow on the mountainside. There was no safe way for us to even begin to search for survivers. Aftershocks were still happening and rubble was still moving. As we stood there in disbelief, we could hear bricks still falling from the buildings around us. The locals and few Army personel told us that there were no survivers.
We assessed the situation and the leaders of the group decided to leave the 2 or 3 people people who were medically trained to assist the search teams that were in route, while those of us without medical training would head back to camp for safety reasons.
As I walked back to camp, I was blessed with an amazing view of the snow-capped Himalayas. It was a strange moment to be in wonder of the beauty of God’s Himalayas and yet see the tragity and terror that nature can cause. I was thanking God that I was alive and that the mountain hadn’t crumbled on top of me or my Squad mates. As the adrenaline from the day began to wear off and I started to process what I’d seen and experienced, I felt a healthy sense of respect for God’s creation and the fragility of my own existence. It reinforced the fact that the only reason I am walking on this earth is because of the grace of God.
It is crazy that after a quake and all the aftershocks your brain begins to play tricks on you. You will suddenly feel the earth shake but it is all in your head. The way to distinguish if the ground is really shaking is to keep a bottle of water next to you at all times. That way when you think you feel the ground shake you can look to the water, if the water isn’t moving you know it’s all mental, if the water is trembling you know to brace yourself. I feel asleep that first night feeling the ground shake and knowing that my water wasn’t trembling.
Continue to pray for Nepal. Even though it has been a month since the second quake, there is still so much need there.
