Myde

It was on 3 November 2023 at precisely 11.47 pm that a 6.4 magnitude earthquake destroyed over   eight thousand houses and took the lives of over two hundred people in Nepal with Jajarkot district as the epicenter. Twenty days later on 23 November I  visited one of the  affected villages called Myde perched on a mountain top  about 12 kms from Jajarkot. The area is not easily accessible. Only tractors can ply through what the villagers said was a road.   The situation was most pathetic to say the least.

 Over ninety percentage of the houses were totally or partially destroyed. The area looked like a war zone. Wooden pieces and mantled tins were still hanging precariously from the destroyed houses. The houses were abandoned. Dogs roamed the dusty road.  No children could be seen playing anywhere.  Plastics hanging over a rope or a bamboo could be seen in the open fields. These were their new homes. Father, mother, children were all under these sheets of plastics with whatever they could salvage from their destroyed houses. There was a deadly silence over the place. One elderly woman said, ‘We are waiting for death to visit us’.

  They do not have proper warm clothes or sufficient food.  The villagers said we were the first group to visit them and bring them some relief. We had come prepared to give a hundred families a tarpaulin, some warm clothes and a bag of rice. It was nothing much but something.  Hearing the sound of the tractor nearby villagers also gathered. We were sorry we could not provide them anything as the number of families were more than we had prepared for.

 Soon after the earthquake there was lot of reporting by the media and visit by the leaders. They reached the towns and cities and areas near the road. Neither reporters nor leaders nor any relief had ever  reached Myde. And there are many more villages like Myde unreported and unvisited.

  Now reporters have gone back, leaders are busy with new issues and people are left in the cold. Most of those who bring relief they visit villages close to the road or leave provision at the district  headquarters. The  villages  not easily accessible are left out in the process. People are in need of food and warm clothes. They cannot survive this winter under the plastic sheets. They will need at least some tin sheets to protect them from the cold.  Government is busy with politics and even relief measures are also politicized.  Unless authorities wake up and take interest it is impossible for agencies to reach these remote areas.

 Photos can speak more than words. They cannot lie. Here are the photos taken by me on the situation in Myde village twenty days after the earthquake.

                                                                    -            A report from Fr TVGeorge, West Nepal

Many may have to spend winter in such condition

Like a war zone,  Aid workers help to remove the rubble .  

One of the affected families 

They are lucky to get a tin sheet house to protect them from winter. 

 

 

 

Waiting expectantly for a Good Samaritan

The relief we have taken  for the villagers is a drop in the ocean
but as Mother Teresa said the ocean would be less without that drop.

Waiting expectantly for their names to be called out.

All were not lucky. We were sorry we could not give to everyone. 

The new home for these children .
How will they survive the winter under these plastic sheets?