Focus shifted to providing relief to survivors

FE Team | Published: November 05, 2023 21:10:05

JAJARKOT, Nov 05 (AFP): Search and rescue efforts after an earthquake in Nepal wrapped up on Sunday as the focus shifted to providing relief to survivors awaiting food and shelter, officials said 36 hours after the disaster struck.
At least 157 people were killed in isolated western districts of the Himalayan country when the 5.6-magnitude earthquake hit late Friday. Many survivors spent the night under the open sky, their mud houses reduced to piles of rubble.
Several people died in the village of Nalgad, in the worst-hit Jajarkot district, where Mahesh Chanare prepared to cremate his father-in-law Sunday. "The rest of my family is safe," the 34-year-old plumber told AFP.
"But the houses have buried everything with them, there is hardly anything to eat," he added. "No relief materials have reached us. People here desperately need food and tents."
Altogether 105 people died in Jajarkot and another 52 in neighbouring Rukum district, officials said, with more than 100 injured, and search and rescue operations had been concluded.
"We are in touch with all areas and rescue operations have wrapped up," said provincial police spokesman Gopal Chandra Bhattarai.