DHADING, Nepal: Barely any sign of an organized relief effort was visible outside Nepal’s capital on Sunday, as aid agencies struggled to fly and truck relief supplies to a country stricken by its worst earthquake in eight decades.
In the lush Dhading farming district 80 km outside Katmandu, people camped in the open, the hospital was overflowing, the power was off and shops were closed. Rocks were strewn across the lightly traveled single road running west from the capital.
“Many people have lost their homes. Many people have died,” said English teacher Chandra Lama, whose home village lies two hours’ drive further west. The crops in his village ruined, Lama was hunting for rice and pulses to feed his family.
“We are waiting to see what the government will do.”
Indian military helicopters airlifted some injured to local hospitals but officials said their operations had been hampered by rain, cloud cover and repeated aftershocks. With thousands sleeping in the open with no power or water and downpours forecast, fears mounted of a humanitarian disaster.
Across the country, hundreds of villages have been left to fend for themselves.
“We are overwhelmed with rescue and assistance request from all across the country,” said Deepak Panda, a member of the country’s disaster management.
Charity CARE International said that the death toll could run into the thousands, with hundreds of thousands homeless. “Almost everyone has slept outside and they are creating temporary shelters with what they have,” said CARE’s emergency response coordinator in Katmandu, Santosh Sharma. CARE said shelter and washing facilities were a priority, as well as food. “There is no electricity, and soon there will be a scarcity of water.”
Aid agencies held a first meeting with the Nepalese government on Sunday to coordinate the relief effort. But the majority of rescue workers face a grueling journey by land from Nepal’s state capital Katmandu along rough, badly damaged roads, more often frequented by groups of adventurous tourists heading for Himalayan trekking trails.
British charity Save the Children said hospitals in the Katmandu Valley were overcrowded, running out of room to store dead bodies and short on emergency supplies.
“Thousands of people have to stay outside of their homes, which have been damaged or destroyed by the earthquake. Shelter assistance is urgently needed,” said Save the Children’s Peter Olyle, who is based in Katmandu.
Charity Medecins sans Frontieres was struggling to get relief supplies including thousands of blankets and shelter in from India’s northern state of Bihar — also hit by Saturday’s quake — because landslides had made roads difficult to navigate.
Strong aftershocks further hampered aid and caused panic after the Saturday’s midday quake, which measured 7.9 on the Richter scale and flattened buildings, opened cracks in roads and knocked out phone networks.
At the Dhading district hospital, patients were crammed in three to a bed and some being treated in the open. Officials reported 24 dead in the nearby village of Kumpur.
Three people lay on stretchers in a hospital corridor waiting for treatment. Bins were filled with used bandages and medical equipment as the hospital ran short of supplies, while volunteers had to help overstretched medical staff.
“No, I didn’t sleep last night,” said Rashila Amatya, medical superintendent at the hospital. New patients were being brought in from outlying areas on Sunday. “For this new batch of patients there will probably not be enough medicine to last for today.”
Basudev Ghimire, head of the local rescue unit, said that more than 130 people had been killed in the district but the number injured ran into the thousands. The Indian military, he said, had brought more than 100 people by helicopter to the district hospital or to Katmandu. But they had brought no supplies; only evacuated people.
Meanwhile, locals prepared for another cold night outside. Officials on motorcycles rode through the town, telling residents through loudhailers that it was not safe to go indoors because of the risk of aftershocks. People were building tents with bamboo and sheets, with at least 1,000 ready to spend the night in several makeshift camps.
Quake-hit Nepalese fend for themselves
Quake-hit Nepalese fend for themselves
DHL cargo plane crashes into a house in Lithuania, killing at least 1
- The Lithuanian airport authority identified the aircraft as a “DHL cargo plane
VILNIUS: A DHL cargo plane crashed into a house Monday morning near the Lithuanian capital, killing at least one person.
Lithuanian’s public broadcaster LRT, quoting an emergency official, said two people had been taken to the hospital after the crash, and one was later pronounced dead. LRT said the aircraft smashed into a two-story home near the airport.
The Lithuanian airport authority identified the aircraft as a “DHL cargo plane flying from Leipzig, Germany, to Vilnius Airport.”
It posted on the social platform X that city services including a fire truck were on site.
DHL Group, headquartered in Bonn, Germany, did not immediately return a call for comment.
The DHL aircraft was operated by Swiftair, a Madrid-based contractor. The carrier could not be immediately reached.
The Boeing 737 was 31 years old, which is considered by experts to be an older airframe, though that’s not unusual for cargo flights.
UN chief slams land mine threat days after US decision to supply Ukraine
- The outgoing US administration is aiming to give Ukraine an upper hand before President-elect Donald Trump enters office
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the mines ‘very important’ to halting Russian attacks
SIEM REAP, Cambodia: The UN Secretary-General on Monday slammed the “renewed threat” of anti-personnel land mines, days after the United States said it would supply the weapons to Ukrainian forces battling Russia’s invasion.
In remarks sent to a conference in Cambodia to review progress on the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty, UN chief Antonio Guterres hailed the work of clearing and destroying land mines across the world.
“But the threat remains. This includes the renewed use of anti-personnel mines by some of the Parties to the Convention, as well as some Parties falling behind in their commitments to destroy these weapons,” he said in the statement.
He called on the 164 signatories — which include Ukraine but not Russia or the United States — to “meet their obligations and ensure compliance to the Convention.”
Guterres’ remarks were delivered by UN Under-Secretary General Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana.
AFP has contacted her office and a spokesman for Guterres to ask if the remarks were directed specifically at Ukraine.
The Ukrainian team at the conference did not respond to AFP questions about the US land mine supplies.
Washington’s announcement last week that it would send anti-personnel land mines to Kyiv was immediately criticized by human rights campaigners.
The outgoing US administration is aiming to give Ukraine an upper hand before President-elect Donald Trump enters office.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the mines “very important” to halting Russian attacks.
The conference is being held in Cambodia, which was left one of the most heavily bombed and mined countries in the world after three decades of civil war from the 1960s.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet told the conference his country still needs to clear over 1,600 square kilometers (618 square miles) of contaminated land that is affecting the lives of more than one million people.
Around 20,000 people have been killed in Cambodia by land mines and unexploded ordnance since 1979, and twice as many have been injured.
The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) said on Wednesday that at least 5,757 people had been casualties of land mines and explosive remnants of war across the world last year, 1,983 of whom were killed.
Civilians made up 84 percent of all recorded casualties, it said.
Philippines’ Marcos says threat of assassination ‘troubling’
- Security agencies at the weekend said they would step up their protocols
MANILA: Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos said on Monday he will not take lightly “troubling” threats against him, just days after his estranged vice president said she had asked someone to assassinate the president if she herself was killed.
In a video message during which he did not name Vice President Sara Duterte, his former running mate, Marcos said “such criminal plans should not be overlooked.”
Security agencies at the weekend said they would step up their protocols and investigate the statement, which Duterte made at a press conference. The vice president’s office has acknowledged a Reuters request for comment.
An average of 140 women and girls were killed by a partner or relative per day in 2023, the UN says
- The agencies reported approximately 51,100 women and girls were killed in 2023
- The rates were highest in Africa and the Americas and lowest in Asia and Europe
UNITED NATIONS: The deadliest place for women is at home and 140 women and girls on average were killed by an intimate partner or family member per day last year, two UN agencies reported Monday.
Globally, an intimate partner or family member was responsible for the deaths of approximately 51,100 women and girls during 2023, an increase from an estimated 48,800 victims in 2022, UN Women and the UN Office of Drugs and Crime said.
The report released on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women said the increase was largely the result of more data being available from countries and not more killings.
But the two agencies stressed that “Women and girls everywhere continue to be affected by this extreme form of gender-based violence and no region is excluded.” And they said, “the home is the most dangerous place for women and girls.”
The highest number of intimate partner and family killings was in Africa – with an estimated 21,700 victims in 2023, the report said. Africa also had the highest number of victims relative to the size of its population — 2.9 victims per 100,000 people.
There were also high rates last year in the Americas with 1.6 female victims per 100,000 and in Oceania with 1.5 per 100,000, it said. Rates were significantly lower in Asia at 0.8 victims per 100,000 and Europe at 0.6 per 100,000.
According to the report, the intentional killing of women in the private sphere in Europe and the Americas is largely by intimate partners.
By contrast, the vast majority of male homicides take place outside homes and families, it said.
“Even though men and boys account for the vast majority of homicide victims, women and girls continue to be disproportionately affected by lethal violence in the private sphere,” the report said.
“An estimated 80 percent of all homicide victims in 2023 were men while 20 percent were women, but lethal violence within the family takes a much higher toll on women than men, with almost 60 percent of all women who were intentionally killed in 2023 being victims of intimate partner/family member homicide,” it said.
The report said that despite efforts to prevent the killing of women and girls by countries, their killings “remain at alarmingly high levels.”
“They are often the culmination of repeated episodes of gender-based violence, which means they are preventable through timely and effective interventions,” the two agencies said.
Russia says it downs seven Ukrainian missiles over Kursk region
Russia’s air defense systems destroyed seven Ukrainian missiles overnight over the Kursk region, governor of the Russian region that borders Ukraine said on Monday.
He said that air defense units also destroyed seven Ukrainian drones. He did not provide further details.
A pro-Russian military analyst Roman Alyokhin, who serves as an adviser to the governor, said on his Telegram messaging channel that “Kursk was subjected to a massive attack by foreign-made missiles” overnight.
