Sometimes earthquakes are caused by a sudden thrust or release of built-up stress, along the major fault line where plates meet. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Kathmandu, Nepal is situated on a block of crust approximately 120km wide and 60km long. In the same area the Indian Plate, which is carrying India, is slowly diving underneath the Eurasian Plate, which is carrying much of Europe and Asia.
On April 15th, 2015 at 11:56NST a 7.8Mw earthquake lasting about 50 seconds rumbled throughout Nepal. USGS says that the block in which Kathmandu sits reportedly shifted 10ft to the south in this time. It was very devastating to this country, as well as affecting India, China, and Bangladesh. It was big news around the world with 60 countries providing international aid relief. The epicentre was east of the district of Lamjung and northwest of Kathmandu. (28.147N 84.708E).
Officially in Nepal 8,922 people lost there lives and 21,952 people were injured. There also 161 more people who lost there lives and 2,000 more people who were injured that are not officially recorded. Not only did the people have to go through the initial quake they also had the endure aftershocks as well. There were two that were quite big after the first quake; on April 26th, 2015 at 12:54 that registered at 6.7Mw and on May 12th, 2015 at 12:51 that registered at 7.3Mw. The one on May 12th caused 231 people to lose their lives and 2,500 more people were injured. These earthquakes displaced more than 450,000 people and triggered Avalanches and landslides throughout Nepal. This has been the worst natural disaster since the 1934 Nepal-Bihar earthquake on January 15th at 14:13IST, which had casualties around 6,000 people.
Throughout this month in Nepal you still can see the physical effects that were caused by the earthquake. What you don’t see much of unless you look and talk to the locals here is the psychological effects that have occurred during the quake. At the start of this month my team and I went to a church in the middle of rice fields. On the way there we stopped at a group of temporary housing of the earthquake victims. While there they fed us beans and flatbread and we got to hear the story of this lady and how the earthquake has changed her life.
This lady, whom I’m going to call Grace, is married and has a 10 year old son. She also had her parents living with her before the quake. She lived in a small village in the mountains. The morning of the earthquake she told us that she was in Kathmandu for an dentist appointment. But the rest of her family was at home. She wasn’t able to go back to her town after the quake because the roads were unsafe and damaged. She heard on the news that her town has been completed destroy but was unable to communicate with her family. For 15 days after the quake she heard nothing from or about her family. She was emotional when she told us that all she could do for those 15 days was to pray for the safety of her family.
*This next paragraph may not be suitable for all readers*
Grace’s nephew, who happened to be our translator for the day, told us that he was in that town when the quake hit. Right after the quake he said that all you could hear were people screaming in pain and yelling for help. He saw people bleeding and without limbs. That people were getting nose bleeds because the dust in the air was so thick from all the buildings collapsing. In the days following the quake he said that is when many people past away because the hospital in the town was no longer standing, they only could do basic first aid and people needed much more. It took days for people the arrive with help because the roads were unsafe or completely gone.
Grace, her family, and most of the rest of her town are now living in temporary houses 7-8 hours from where they original lived. I can’t even imagine my emotional state after something like that then have to move so far away, not only did they move grace and her family, but they no longer live under the same roof. Grace told us that her whole family are living apart from each other, living in totally different communities. Grace’s parents are living in one and her husband in another. By the sound of it they are not that close by. She did say that her son didn’t live that far from her and that she got to see him about once a week. After we talked with her, we walked with her to visit her son. He was attending the church we were heading to. To what I could understand he lives in the church building with another family. It took about an hour to walk there. One hour! I wouldn’t think that is very close but when you have such a big event change your life it doesn’t seem that far.
There are so many stories like Grace’s. Just because the news has stop reporting about what is happening here in Nepal, doesn’t mean that the people here have stop hurting. Please pray for all the people that were affected and are still effected by the earthquake. Please also pray for Grace’s husband as he is not a believer. Only Grace and her son are believers.
You can still tell that people are afraid every time the earth shakes. As of August 16, 2015 there has been 379 aftershocks with the magnitude greater then 4Mw. I personally have felt 2 earthquakes. One on the 12th right before lunch and the other on the 16th around dinner. The first one happen while our team was at our host’s house during amad, it only last a few seconds. After it was done our host told everyone that if it happened again to run outside. When the second one happened I was on the roof washing laundry with a few teammates and a couple of Nepali kids. As the earth shook the kids ran for the stairs calling “sisters come, sisters come.” Again it only lasted a few seconds, when it was done I was still standing on the roof I could hear all the dogs in the neighbourhood barking. I looked over the railing, I saw all down the street, all the Nepali people out on the street looking around and the kids that were on the roof were out by our gate. It hit me hard to see that even after four months, every time the earth shakes even a bit, these people think it might be the end, that they might die. I mean it took three kids to ran down 5 flights of stairs and to the gate in about 15 seconds. No joke.
Before I came on the World Race I knew that coming to Nepal would be hard emotional, that I would see some very sad things. When I got here and I found out that my team wouldn’t be helping with rebuilding something, I was kinda bummed. But now I understand that what I did this month, even if you can’t see physical what my team and I have done this month, has help plant a seed within people so that God may start fixing the inside of each people here in Nepal.
The picture above is from one of our days off a few people from my squad and I went to a National Park. When we got to the top the Nepali man with us told us that the house that once stood here fell during the quake and 8 people lost their lives. We took a moment of silence.
