How To Help Victims Of Quake-Ravaged Nepal Desperately In Need
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- The massive earthquake centered in Nepal has killed more than 3,900 people and the number continues to rise. Here are some of the organizations that are already in the region and working with quake victims who are desperately in need of help:
- UN World Food Programme
- Doctors Without Borders
- World Vision
- Oxfam
- CARE
- Save the Children
- Samaritan's Purse
- UNICEF
- IFRC (International Federation Of Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies)
Shelter, fuel, food, medicine, power, news, workers -- Nepal's earthquake-hit capital was short on everything Monday as its people searched for lost loved ones, sorted through rubble for their belongings and struggled to provide for their families' needs. In much of the countryside, it was worse, though how much worse was only beginning to become apparent.
Aid is coming from more than a dozen countries and many charities, but Lila Mani Poudyal, the government's chief secretary and the rescue coordinator, said Nepal needed more.
"We are appealing for tents, dry goods, blankets, mattresses, and 80 different medicines that the health department is seeking that we desperately need now," Poudyal told reporters. "We don't have the helicopters that we need or the expertise to rescue the people trapped."
As people are pulled from the wreckage, he noted, even more help is needed.
"Now we especially need orthopedic (doctors), nerve specialists, anaesthetists, surgeons and paramedics," he said. "We are appealing to foreign governments to send these specialized and smart teams."
Kathmandu district chief administrator Ek Narayan Aryal said tents and water were being handed out Monday at 10 locations in Kathmandu, but that aftershocks were leaving everyone jittery. The largest, on Sunday, was magnitude 6.7.
"There have been nearly 100 earthquakes and aftershocks, which is making rescue work difficult. Even the rescuers are scared and running because of them," he said.
On Monday morning, some pharmacies and shops for basic provisions opened while bakeries began offering fresh bread. Huge lines of people desperate to secure fuel lined up outside gasoline pumps, though prices were the same as they were before the earthquake struck.
The quake has put a huge strain on the resources of this impoverished country best known for Everest, the highest mountain in the world. The economy of Nepal, a nation of 27.8 million people, relies heavily on tourism, principally trekking and Himalayan mountain climbing.
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