At about noon on Saturday April 25, I was doing what I usually do, playing with children at the Phul Kumari Mahato Memorial Hospital (PKMMH) library. It had been somewhat of a rainy day and some of the children and I were sitting on cement steps adjacent to the library playing "Go Fish", a card game that I had recently taught them. Go Fish, along with war, which some call "worms" or "1-2-3" because we say one, two, three before we all turn over our cards have all taken Karjanha Village by storm. I suddenly heard and saw the steel roll away door that are at the top of the steps start to shake, as well as, feeling the cement steps shaking under my bottom. After a few seconds I said to the kids, "earth quake".
Growing up in California I had experienced my fair share of quakes. When I was 14, I experienced my very first quake on February 9, 1971 which occurred at 6 AM in the morning. The entire neighborhood was awake and outside. At that time I had no idea what was going on as my family had never talked about quakes. I remember screaming so much that I lost my voice and we also had to leave our home because there was a dam with a crack in it not too far from our home. We went to an aunt's house for a number of days until the dam could be called safe again. A number of freeways collapsed, as well as, buildings and a number of people died.
I screamed for the children in the library to get out and we all made our way to the road a few feet in front of the library. I could also see down the road into Karjanha Village where a number of people were standing. Patients and the staff had come outside of the Hospital fearing a collapse. I'm told PKMMH is earthquake proof but not really knowing or trusting this, nobody wanted to stay inside the Hospital. Plus there isn't a great awareness about earthquake safety.
Although we were 300+ km from the epicenter in Lamjung, the sensations created by the quake felt very strange, i.e. for a number of seconds I had a difficult time keeping my balance which was very weird. I did my best to tell the children not to be afraid, told them to be in an open area or underneath a door jam which is supposed to be the strongest part of a home. But when homes are built from mud or brick the wisest choice would probably be to go to an open field of which, in this rural area, there are many.
I remember the 1989 earthquake although I was watching the World Series game from my new home in New London, after having moved from the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Area where I think that I must have experienced an earthquake. It was absolutely crazy to see the stands moving up and down, not from a rally but from the earth shaking.
I read an article on CNN discussing how the Indian sub-continent is making its way slowly but surely into Nepal creating more mountains, but also creating slippage along fault lines which led to the most recent quake in Nepal, also felt in India, Tibet and neighboring countries.
Although Karjanha didn't have much damage, two children had some debris fall on them causing fractures. I'm deeply saddened about the devastation in Kathmandu, where I lived from June 2012-March 2014, the lives lost and the beautiful historic buildings which will never be seen again. Yes, I have photos and the experience forever in my mind, but what about all of the precious lives lost. One of my colleagues at PKMMH lost a 22 year old friend who lived in Kathmandu, and there will be stories of many more.
There is much more that I could write about Nepal but my feeling is that it will take a long time to recover. Will new construction be required to be earth quake proof, will aid which will now flow into Nepal go to the people that actually need it, will contractors stop cutting corners? These questions will remain. This is still a rural country with many people living in villages with brick, mud or wood homes. There will be more earthquakes, it's the geology of the area. However, hopefully next time there will be more disaster preparedness and more lives and buildings will be saved.
There are many disaster relief NGOs working in Nepal. Please consider a donation to one of them and help the Nepali people.
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