Emergency Action Alliance<\/a> to deliver urgent relief. On Sunday evening, the Australian government tipped another $1m into the hat, bringing the total amount, including public donations, to $3.8m.<\/p>\nGetting the basics in is hard. Huge trucks have dropped supplies off at the beginning of the flood zone, where they are kept in makeshift storerooms. The next day it can be picked up by smaller 4WDs and taken up the valley.<\/p>\n
The government is tightly controlling what goes where. After the 2015 earthquake, where the response was rapid but disorganised, communities were forced to bury non-essential items, so international charities are not allowed to distribute things themselves. When aid reaches an area, it\u2019s registered with an official, who then distributes it.<\/p>\n
Workers have been able to reach the worst-hit district, Rasuwa, but have not been able to get as far as the border checkpoint, where many of the missing Australians were last heard from.<\/p>\n
The aftermath of flash floods in Devighat, Bidur municipality. Photograph: Ahmer Khan\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
One aid worker in Bidur, who was not cleared to speak to the media, says his colleagues who had managed to get up the valley had estimated that as many as 70% of the people living there were lost.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause down here they had warning, maybe 10-15 minutes,\u201d he says. \u201cBut up there it was seconds. So there will be bodies trapped in the mud, that will be difficult to identify and difficult to rescue. And the smell, the smell.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another worker says the people who survived the floods have moved up on to the hills \u2013 staying in makeshift relief centres or with relatives. Many of the villages have been cut off completely. In Bidur, hundreds of people are stuck on the wrong side of the river after the bridge was washed away. There is a market but, once they eat through the supplies left, the only option will be aid drops by helicopter.<\/p>\n
On Sunday night, hundreds of people gathered across Australia to hold candlelight vigils for Nepal. The connection between the two countries runs deep \u2013 there are 200,000 Nepalese diaspora living in Australia.<\/p>\n
\u2018Namaste\u2019<\/p>\n
Here, on the other side of the world, the connection cuts through the tragedy.<\/p>\n
Bhagat Lal, 68, is sitting outside his house just 100 metres away from the river. He hears an Australian accent and launches into a greeting: \u201cNamaste,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
One of his sons is studying in Brisbane. Although they have family missing, his son will stay in Australia until they have more information. Through a translator, Lal explains how his relatives, two mothers and two children, are missing. Their whole house was found washed up on the bank of the river, 100 metres from where they lived.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the ground level, the river was flowing nine, 10 metres high,\u201d Lal says. \u201cIt shook the house \u2026 the house got carried 100 metres away.\u201d<\/p>\n
double quotation markMe and my husband grabbed our children in our arms, and we just ranSulochana Tamang<\/p>\n
After the aid trucks are emptied, the Plan International team head up the hill to the relief centre, where they are dropping off a water tank.<\/p>\n
The centre has become home for 92 displaced Nepalese; 53 of them are children. A worker from the centre points to one young boy \u2013 both his parents are gone. The girl next to him: no one knows where her mother is, but her father is here.<\/p>\n
Many of them are from the Rasuwa district. Some were found by the Nepalese army; others walked. One group of children, some dressed in their school uniforms, walked for more than six hours to get to Bidur.<\/p>\n
They sleep on the floor in large shared rooms, or on makeshift hospital beds that have been brought in. Lunch is served \u2013 noodles and veggies. Some of the kids are given haircuts. Their days are spent sitting in the shade or running around with the dogs. Others wrap themselves fully in blankets, lying inside, their heads covered from the world.<\/p>\n
\u2018Everything is gone\u2019<\/p>\n
Sulochana Tamang, 30, is staying at the centre. She was rescued from the side of a mountain, her two children aged seven and two, in her arms.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy town is on the border of Rasuwa and Nuwakot districts,\u201d she says through a translator.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the flood came, me and my husband grabbed our children in our arms, and we just ran. We fled up the mountain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sulochana Tamang at the relief centre in Bidur, Nepal. Photograph: Cait Kelly\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
After two days, they were found by the army, who helicoptered them to the barracks. The family of four survived, but they have lost relatives. Tamang stares out over the mountains.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are around 80 households in my village. Everything is gone. There is nothing remaining.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like the others, Tamang will live at the centre, possibly for months. There is nowhere else to go.<\/p>\n
Plan are going to bring in learning materials, so the children don\u2019t miss too much of their schooling. They will make sure the food is nutritious and see if they can get Clowns Without Borders<\/a> over to bring in some joy.<\/p>\n\u201cThe scale of the distraction is clearer today,\u201d Krishnan says. \u201cBut we are also seeing increasingly how people in Nepal are united and people in the rest of the world are with them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe contributions of the Australian public have been a huge boost, because the relief workers are reminded they\u2019re not alone in that crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first thing is the noise \u2013 chopper blades cutting through the air as helicopters come and go…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":874583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-874582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/874583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}