Monday 11 May 2015

‘Trying to dig their lives out of the rubble’ - Tales from the shaken villages of Nepal as ShelterBox helps the people of Pipaldanda

The quaintly named mountain village of Pipaldanda is, after Nepal’s catastrophic earthquake, anything but a beauty spot. ShelterBox’s Liz Odell and Liam Arthur describe a community with no school, no hospital, and families ‘trying to dig their lives out of the rubble’.

ShelterBox response volunteers are trained not to let emotion get in the way of their focus on aid delivery. That’s quite a tall order when you are on deployment in post-earthquake Nepal, where every mountain village you reach has been reduced to rubble, and communities have had to go back to basics in order to survive.

Liz Odell and her colleague Liam Arthur, both volunteers with the UK disaster relief charity, have been working out of Chautara in the precipitous district of Sindhupalchok. It was in these Himalayan foothills that the earthquake had its epicentre, where the earth shook most violently. Hardly any of the traditional mud-brick buildings survive, and centuries-old temples stand cracked and fragmented, if they stand at all.

Liz and Liam are part of a vast multi-agency rescue team that involves charities from around the world, as well as local community groups and the military. A particular focus now is on reaching villagers who live in off-road mountain areas, who will become even more isolated when the June monsoon rains arrive.

Pipaldanda is a village and market centre above Chautara, stretching across precarious hillsides, a cluster of around 500 houses. Almost all are gone. Navaldurga Primary School in Pipaldana was newly built only three years ago, but now lies in ruins. It was central to the village with its community hall for the local committee, even a Mothers’ group. Now Liz and Arthur saw school furniture crushed and splintered under breezeblocks and tin roofing. Mercifully the quake struck on a Saturday, when the children were not at school.  

Liam Arthur says, ‘The school field will be used as a distribution point for tents going to local families. Our work here would not be possible without the help of local people including Jitendra Singh, who act as translators and a vital source of local knowledge.’

‘We could see the school desks lying under piles of rubble. The effect of the earthquake on everybody's lives here is hard to describe, children have no schools to go to, doctors have no hospitals to work in, and the local communities are trying to dig their lives out of the rubble.’

Around a corner they find an older lady, Pampa, who is tending a goat. Liz explains, ‘Pampa’s home in Pipaldanda was destroyed. She carries water up the mountain to try to nurse her last remaining goat. The rest of her livestock was killed in the earthquake. The goat has a broken leg, and probably won't make it either.’

Liam and Liz have also met Meena Thapa from UNICEF. Meena, along with the World Health Organisation, has agreed to provide 43 tents for use as medical facilities in all of the village communities in Sindhupalchok that can currently be accessed. They will be vital space for the medics to work in often very difficult locations.

Sherbahadur and his wife Sapicota try to dig their possessions out of the rubble that is now all that remains of their home. They were working in Kathmandu when the earthquake struck. With no way to communicate, they managed to return to Pipaldanda to find that, thankfully, their family had escaped with only minor injuries. They are now living with four other families in a makeshift shelter that is just four by six metres.

Nearby a young boy plays his drum, while his father tries to repair their home. Teetering in the background is the village’s temple, badly damaged by the quake, and looking like it could collapse at any minute. Everywhere there is danger and destruction. 

Thankfully Liz and Liam were able to promise the villagers of Pipaldanda,‘Tomorrow Shelterbox is going to provide 156 relief tents to the village, so this community has a base to rebuild from.’