Nepal urgently needs tents, dry food, medicines
The Nepal government urgently needs tents, dry food, mattresses, medicines and other basic essentials to distribute to its people who are in dire need of relief and support after Saturday's major earthquake and Sunday's aftershocks, a senior official sa
At a press conference in capital Kathmandu, Nepal Chief Secretary Leela Mani Paudyal said the government has requested India, China and other foreign countries to provide more assistance to Nepal, Xinhua news agency reported.
The remarks came as tens of thousands of people in the Himalayan nation continued to spend chilly nights in the open for the past two days and were seeking basic essentials following the devastating earthquake on Saturday and a strong aftershock on Sunday afternoon.
"We are not able to distribute enough drinking water, dry food, mattresses, and medicines to the earthquake victims in such a difficult situation," the chief secretary said, adding that the government was doing its best to conduct rescue operations with speed.
But he conceded that the government was unable to send rescue teams to the far-flung villages of the country given the bad weather and difficult topography.
People have been living without electricity for the past two days since the 7.9-magnitude quake jolted central, western, mid-western and far-western regions of the Himalayan nation. The chief secretary said electricity supply could only be resumed on Tuesday at the earliest.
