India ramps up relief effort as teams reach epicentre

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 27

The scale of devastation caused by Saturday’s earthquake in Nepal slowly begins to unfold as Indian Army medical and rescue teams arrive in areas that have remained inaccessible so far. At Barpak village — the epicentre of the quake —hundreds of bodies have been found lying in the rubble.
The affected areas fall in Gorkha district of north-central Nepal with a population of 4,556 (as per the 1991 census). An Army forward medical team is now stationed in the area.
A field hospital has been put up at Rajdalgarh near Lalitpur with an orthopaedic specialist, a surgical specialist and an anaesthetist along with attached medical staff.
Additional doctors have been tasked with covering 80 km area around the base in two mobile medical teams.
Army teams and the IAF have been told to focus on areas away from Kathmandu. The Army and the IAF have positioned their teams and six helicopters at a small helipad just outside Kathmandu and four helicopters at Pokhra. More than 350 people have been rescued by the helicopters. Transport planes are being used to ferry supplies to the quake-hit country and bring back stranded Indians.
Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag today asked staff to connect with former soldiers of the Nepalese-origin Gorkha regiments and enquire about their well being. There are around 60,000 Gorkha veterans of the Indian Army.
Another 28,000 Nepalese-origin currently serve the Army and leave has been granted to those who want to attend to their family.
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