Relief operations continue in remote areas

Kathmandu, Apr. 30, 2015: 

The total loss of lives in the devastating earthquake on Saturday afternoon and its successive jolts is yet unknown while the tremors claimed the lives of 5,582 by Thursday afternoon and the toll was climbing up.

According to government's primary estimation, about 10,000 people might have lost their lives in the calamity.

The rescue and relief operations in the far flung villages in Sindhupalchowk, Nuwakot, Gorakha, Rasuwa and Dhading have just started today or the day before therefore it would take another week to get the primary data, said Laxmi Prasad Dhakal, spokesperson at Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA).

According to MoHA, remote areas were not getting sufficient relief items till today evening.

However, government and foreign rescue teams are struggling hard to reach there as efforts to reach mountains were marred by the bad weather.

The overwhelming earthquake killed 5,113 in the Central Region alone while the tremors claimed the lives of 415 in the Western Region and 52 in the Eastern Region.

Sindhupalchowk district witnessed the loss of its 1,677 citizens in the calamity while 1049 died in Kathmandu, 707 in Nuwakot, 527 in Dhading and 407 in Gorkha.

The death toll was alarmingly going up in the hills as the rescue operations started there recently that is why the number of deaths is continuously rising in Sindhupalchowk, Nuwakot and Dhading, said MoHA.

The Far-Western Region was the least affected with no death and injuries caused by the quake reported so far.

In the Mid-Western Region Rolpa and Rukum lost one person each in the earthquake.

More than 11 thousand people sustained injuries in the devastating jolts.

The Central Region has the highest number of wounded persons with 9,691 sustaining injuries while 1177 were injured in the Western Region and 283 in the Eastern Region.

236 Thousand Houses Damaged

The devastating earthquake has caused a severe damage to the government and private houses across the country as more than 236,000 houses were damaged fully or partially in the tremors.

The highest number of houses were damaged in Nuwakot district as 30,000 private houses collapsed there and 15,000 damaged partially while 20,000 houses destroyed in Dhading and 17,750 in Kathmandu.

However, information about the damage on houses in Sindhupalchowk and Gorkha is yet to be updated. Acording to the MoHA, more than 90 per cent houses in these districts have been collapsed in the tremors.

The highest number of houses were damaged in the Central Region with 121,700 houses fully destroyed and 66,767 house damaged partially while in the Western Region, altogether 5,675 families lost their residence in Western region and 11,164 homes experienced partial damage.

The Eastern Region witnessed the destruction of 2,581 private houses and partial damage to 6965 homes.

Altogether 77 houses damaged in the Mid-Western Region while no houses were damaged in the Far-Western Region.

The quake destroyed 10,145 government buildings across the nation while 11,175 government buildings damaged partially.

Some International organizations had made primary estimation that the quake damaged the property worth 900 billion rupees.

Houses damaged by the quake (as of Thursday afternoon)

Region	Government		Private
	Fully	Partially	Fully	Partially
Eastern	37	304	2581	6965
Central	10103	13087	121700	66767
Western	5	68	5675	11164
Mid-Western	-	36	77	954
Far-Western	-	7	0	6
Total	10145	11175	130033	85856

Source: National Emergency Operation Centre, MoHA