‘I heard their cries… then, silence’: Nepal quake survivors recall moment of tragedy

She is a BA student at a college in Kathmandu, around 500 km from Jajarkot. Isha and Merina were visiting sisters Urja and Upasna in Jajarkot for their vacations when tragedy struck.

Friday night’s earthquake in Nepal left 157 people dead and more than 250 injured. Jajarkot and Rukum West were the two worst-hit districts. Several of the injured were brought to Bheri hospital.

Dinesh Oli (25), like Isha, is another earthquake survivor recovering at the emergency ward. And like Isha, he is also mourning the loss of a loved one. Tears trickle down his injured face as he thinks of his sister, Rashmi, who died in the earthquake. Both Dinesh and Rashmi were in the same room when it hit.

Several of the injured were brought to Bheri hospital.

Many of those who died or were injured were asleep at the time. Anamika Shahi (15) was sleeping at her home in Jajarkot when she heard what she thought was a blast. “Then I can’t remember anything else. I woke up at the hospital,” she said. She will undergo a surgery on Monday for injuries in her abdomen. She has also fractured her ribs.

Like Anamika’s home, many of the houses in Jajarkot’s hilly terrain are built with big rocks and mud. This has made rescue even more difficult, and it took six people to pull Anamika out from under the rocks.

Her father Gopal Prakash Shahi (39), who runs a small eatery from their house in Riman village, is also injured. He is in the same ward as his daughter and is visibly worried. “I could only see her hand before we rescued her. She was under the rocks and mud,” Shahi said. They were both airlifted to Nepalgunj from Jajarkot.

With bandages on both his legs and his head, 64-year-old Tika Ram Rana, a farmer, is also awaiting a surgery scheduled for Monday. “Kismat ki wajah se bach gaya. Saans nahi aa rahi thi. Mujhe laga tha main marr jaoonga (It was luck that I survived. I couldn’t breathe and I thought I would die),” he said.

Also at the hospital was 31-year-old Hari Prakash, who rushed there from Shimla after getting to know that his mother was injured in the earthquake. Hari is from Nepal, but works in Shimla as a daily wager. “The whole house has collapsed. I don’t know what we will do now. Maybe we will rebuild it,” said Gaumi Kamini (61), Hari’s mother. She sustained injuries to her back.

A doctor at the Bheri hospital said 40 people are undergoing treatment at the government facility. “Out of them, 12 are children. Some people died on the way. It is a challenge to bring people from the hilly terrain. It takes at least 5-6 hours. Most patients have suffered severe trauma to the head, fractures in legs, ribs and other parts,” said the doctor treating patients at the Emergency ward.

The earthquake, which struck at 11.47 pm (local time) on Friday, was Nepal’s deadliest since 2015, when two earthquakes measuring 7.8 and 7.3 on the Richter scale struck just a few weeks apart, killing around 9,000 people.

Friday’s 6.4 magnitude earthquake was followed by 175 recorded aftershocks, including six of magnitude 4 or higher, Nepal’s National Seismological Centre said.

A local activist involved in rescue operations told The Indian Express that the number of deaths and injuries in the quake was made worse by the fact that it took place at night. “If it had happened during the day, some people would have been out for work, some would have been in open areas, but because it happened late at night, the damage is more,” the activist said.