CHIURI, Nepal, Nov 5 (Portal) – Sobbing relatives of victims of Nepal’s worst earthquake in eight years cremated their loved ones on Sunday as rescuers searched for people who could still be trapped in the rubble of collapsed buildings.
Surrounding about 10 bodies wrapped in white cloth in a tarpaulin tent, relatives prepared marigold garlands for Hindu cremation rites on the banks of the Bheri River.
Earlier, 32-year-old Baljit Mahar sat cross-legged next to the body of his seven-year-old son, one of 157 people who died in the quake late Friday in the western Himalayan state, according to authorities’ latest count of about 250 injured.
“We could not save him while all other six family members managed to escape immediately as the earthquake jolted us awake,” Mahar told Portal in the remote village of Chiuri in the hilly Jajarkot district.
He pulled the body from the crumbling facade of their one-story mud and stone house.
The quake had a magnitude of 6.4, Nepal’s National Seismological Center said, while the US Geological Survey measured a magnitude of 5.6.
It was the deadliest earthquake in the country since 2015, when about 9,000 people were killed by two quakes that reduced entire cities and centuries-old temples to rubble and destroyed more than a million homes, costing the $40 billion economy amounting to 6 billion US dollars.
Since Friday’s quake, thousands of buildings in Jajarkot and neighboring Rukum West district have collapsed or developed cracks, making them uninhabitable.
[1/11]A boy covers himself with a blanket as he lies on the ground next to a house that collapsed during an earthquake in Jajarkot, Nepal, Nov. 5, 2023. Portal/Navesh Chitrakar Acquire License Rights
“All my belongings and clothes are under the rubble,” Mahar said. “I had no choice.”
Nepal Police spokesman Kuber Kadayat said authorities would continue to search for survivors and then move quickly to help and rehabilitate the affected families. The government is treating the injured free of charge.
In Kathmandu, the government said it would make immediate arrangements for shelter, food and security for displaced families and would provide $1,500 in emergency aid to the families of each killed.
Some survivors in Chiuri, who belong to the “untouchable” Dalit community according to Nepal’s Hindu customs, said no government official had yet visited them or offered help.
Survivors said they heard the loud sounds of collapsing buildings shortly after the quake.
“There was a big cloud of dust and we couldn’t even breathe properly or see anything,” said Shanta Bahadur BK, who stood guard over the bodies of six family members while his mother was treated for injuries at a hospital in the nearest town, Nepalgunj.
“I am shocked to lose almost all my family members,” said the 41-year-old, who grows millet and corn. “It is an unbearable pain, but I have to face it and endure it. What to do?”
In Khalanga, the capital of Jajarkot district, survivors slept wrapped in blankets on the streets near damaged houses to brave the cold.
“For every body that was cremated according to our culture and tradition, there was a pyre,” said survivor BK
Reporting by Navesh Chitrakar and Yubaraj Sharma in Chiuri; Additional reporting and writing by Gopal Sharma; Edited by William Mallard and Christopher Cushing
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