In Nepal, focus shifts from rescue to recovery

Ten days after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake rocked the Himalayan nation of Nepal, government authorities said foreign search-and-rescue workers should return home. Officials say it is unlikely the teams will find any more survivors alive inside the rubble strewing the streets of Kathmandu and rural villages near the quake’s epicenter.

“We have already asked them to go home,” a Nepal home ministry spokesman told reporters Tuesday.

But while the chances of finding survivors are growing remote in the wake of the April 25 temblor that killed at least 7,300 people, the need for helping survivors is growing urgent.

An American aiding the relief efforts of the Nepal-based aid organization Mountain Child said the group is still trying to reach villagers in the remote regions where the organization has humanitarian projects.

During pre-quake conditions, reaching the villages near the epicenter required taking a car as far as the roads allowed, and then hiking several days into the mountains.

Post-quake, that arduous journey is compounded by landslides that make transporting supplies even more difficult. The availability of helicopters initially had been scarce, so on Tuesday, Mountain Child sent a small team to scout a route into the mountains on foot. Reports from the target region indicated about 90 percent of the homes were destroyed. By late-week, the group plans to make helicopter runs to the affected area and begin delivering aid to some 8,000 villagers.

The devastated housing in many rural areas makes the need for tarps and shelter materials critical, particularly ahead of an approaching monsoon season. Aid groups are also seeking to provide food and clean water to hard-hit areas.

Even where roads are good, transporting supplies isn’t easy. Sean Malone of the aid group Crisis Response International said his Nepal-based team members are hearing reports of government officials seizing aid supplies at checkpoints.

The United Nations has reported government authorities holding up supplies at the airport in Kathmandu, but other aid workers say they have also heard reports of officials seizing supplies already in the country. In some cases, officials reportedly said they would distribute the supplies themselves. Malone said his team is working to find the best routes to avoid such seizures.

Meanwhile, some aid groups are using technology to aid on-the-ground efforts. Indian and Nepalese authorities are using drones to search inaccessible areas and assess needs.

The American Red Cross has supplied its relief team with maps updated by Internet users who examined online satellite imagery. Dale Kunce, head of the group’s geographic information systems, told The Wall Street Journal that within 48 hours of the Nepal earthquake, some 2,000 mappers had made 3 million online edits.

Another group, MicroMappers, is using similar technology to produce maps with up-to-date information for Nepal aid workers. The group’s website reports more than 2,800 volunteer mappers already have reviewed more than 230,000 images. The name for MicroMapper volunteers: “digital Jedis.”