The best way to know the self is feeling oneself at the moments of reckoning. The feeling of being alone, just with your senses, may lead you to think more consciously. More and more of such moments may sensitize ‘you towards you’, towards others. We become regular with introspection and retrospection. We get ‘the’ gradual connect to the higher self we may name Spirituality or God or just a Humane Conscious. We tend to get a rhythm again in life. We need to learn the art of being lonely in crowd while being part of the crowd. A multitude of loneliness in mosaic of relations! One needs to feel it severally, with conscience, before making it a way of life. One needs to live several such lonely moments. One needs to live severallyalone.

Saturday 2 May 2015

NEPAL EARTHQUAKE: UPDATES SO FAR – ON MAY 2

-- It’s over a week now, 8th day of a massive tragedy that struck Nepal, an impoverished nation that is counted among the least developed, killing around 7000 and injuring over 14000. Many remote areas are still unreachable. Houses in the worst affected regions are completely flattened. Scores are still missing and the final figure after search, rescue and relief operation is expected to be much higher.

-- According to a The Guardian report, Nepal’s customs laws are working as hindrance in the effective distribution of the relief material. Material is piled up at Tribhuvan airport but is not reaching the intended people. Nepal is pleading for food materials to be used for cooking, and not instant noodles and biscuits. It is also requesting the world community for tents and tarpaulin sheets which it made tax-free yesterday only. Responsible people of the Nepal government, who in the very beginning said that they would not be able to meet the needs after the disaster if the international help didn’t come, have, so far, failed to streamline the process of distribution.

-- Aftermath of the quake is one of the many inept responses of the Nepali government. Government apathy and administrative corruption allowed Kathmandu to be an unorganized mess. And now, such factors are in play even here. It is hard to believe when The Guardian reports that a village just 26 Kms west of Kathmandu, Chhatrepati (in Dhading district) is yet to receive the relief material. The Guardian quotes the residents of the village where every house if severely damaged in the earthquake.

-- While the international response has been overwhelming, many thousands of Nepalis are now a disgruntled lot. And that is because of the Nepal government only. Things needed for relief were to be exempted from the tax-regime of the country much ago, when the earthquake struck with a severe blow, but the ‘responsible’ people are still issuing advisories after being reminded of.

-- While there are no houses, families of the victims who lost their family-members in the earthquake are getting tents and tarpaulin sheets or priority basis. But the people who have lost all, except anyone from the family, are not getting the same treatment from the government.

-- Allegations of corruption and nepotism in relief work are increasing by the day. People with influential ties are cornering the relief material while many in the need are left behind.

-- Teams are yet to reach many mountainous reasons in the interior of Nepal. These places have seen some airdropping of relief material but earthquake has isolated such regions from the world, cutting road ties and snapping communication infrastructure. Even miraculous stories of survival would not be expected from such places after so many days. What we wish for is speedy rehabilitation and reconstruction process in universal terms, and not in Nepal’s ways.

-- In many districts, infrastructure of schools, hospitals and other basic civic amentias are so wiped out that reconstruction will take long and it is going to be a challenge for the administration to restart the comatose process.

-- Hospitals, health-centers and make-shift medical units are overflowing with people and there are valid fears of an epidemic, induced by different diseases. Kathmandu, that is expected to see maximum deaths in a single place due to its unorganized mess, looks like a big refugee camp of many small units. And stench of human faces and urine are common from these ‘small units’.

-- Government needs to acts fast on such valid concerns as Monsoon rains are just around the corner. Government also needs to factor in the psychological well-being of the people while requesting them to move to normalcy. They are traumatized and continued aftershocks have made them believe that returning to their houses will take long, probably after Monsoon. According to the UNICEF, the government has ‘a small window of time for rescuers to make arrangements to protect people from a disease-induced epidemic’.  

-- Nepal continued to have tremors of aftershocks today, like every other day. It is scientifically projected that Nepal would continue to feel aftershocks for months to come. Two aftershocks recorded today were of 5.1 and 4.5 in magnitude.

-- Along with aftershocks and bad weather, that also includes rains, landslides and avalanches are further hampering the R&R work, especially in rural areas.

Related post:

NEPAL EARTHQUAKE: UPDATES SO FAR – ON MAY 1
http://severallyalone.blogspot.in/2015/05/nepal-earthquake-updates-so-far-on-may.html

©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/