[When Mr. Tamang was
finally lifted out, cheers rang out from the throng of onlookers witnessing
what might be the last, or one of the last, rescues in a terrible week. Mr.
Tamang’s face was covered in dust, and a blue brace had been placed around his
neck. He told rescuers that he had managed to find ghee, or clarified butter,
in his tiny enclosure, and it had sustained him. He was then taken to an
Israeli field hospital in surprisingly good condition.]
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KATMANDU, Nepal —
Five days had passed since an earthquake devastated Nepal, and rescue teams had largely given up hope of finding anyone else alive among the
piles of brick and broken concrete that litter Katmandu. Then on Thursday, in a
part of the city dense with cheap hotels and shops, rescuers turned off a
mechanical shovel and — in the relative silence — heard a cry.
In the mess lay a
15-year-old hotel worker, Pemba Tamang. A team of rescuers from the United
States offered the Nepali crew a camera that was snaked through the debris. It
showed the teenager trapped under a metal shutter. A concrete slab was poised
above him — held up only by a flattened motorcycle.
“He was trapped in a 2.5
foot tall by 3.5 foot wide area behind the motorcycle,” said Chris Schaff, a
battalion chief with the Fairfax County Fire Department from Virginia, who was
on the American team. “He wasn’t being crushed; he was just pinned.”
The problem was the
concrete slab. It was unstable and a threat not only to the teenager, but to
the rescuers themselves, since it hung over the area where the men had to dig.
“It was the most
concerned I’ve ever been about people under my command,” Chief Schaff said.
Despite the dangers,
eight Nepali rescuers and two Americans continued to dig. As the news spread
that someone might be rescued, residents, who have lived in fear as the city
was battered by aftershocks, rushed to the scene, desperate for good news. The
crowd swelled to several hundred, with people lining the roadway and craning
for a glimpse from a nearby footbridge.
Dozens of Nepali soldiers
also clustered around the site, apparently eager to be part of a proud moment
after days of hardship, and amid frustration from citizens who accuse their
government of ineptitude.
For the renowned
search-and-rescue team from the United States, the task was a chance to finally
save someone, after a dispiriting
day Wednesday in the
nearby city of Bhaktapur. There, people had hoped the rescuers could unearth
bodies for a proper burial, but the team’s mission is to find the living.
When Mr. Tamang was
finally lifted out, cheers rang out from the throng of onlookers witnessing
what might be the last, or one of the last, rescues in a terrible week. Mr.
Tamang’s face was covered in dust, and a blue brace had been placed around his
neck. He told rescuers that he had managed to find ghee, or clarified butter,
in his tiny enclosure, and it had sustained him. He was then taken to an
Israeli field hospital in surprisingly good condition.
A woman at another site
was also freed from the rubble during the day, after being trapped next to
three people who had died.
The rescues were among
the rare bits of good news on an otherwise dreary and rainy day during which
the enormity of the tragedy continued to sink in. The death toll has already
exceeded 5,800, with many more confirmed deaths expected.
Although aftershocks
continue, the miserable weather seemed to have persuaded an increasing number
to leave the tent cities set up throughout the city, presumably for their
homes. Bus service to Nepal’s remote villages began again Thursday, with the
government promising free rides. And flights between some of Nepal’s smaller
cities and Katmandu resumed.
Officials announced
Thursday the creation of a National Reconstruction Fund to rebuild
infrastructure, and the government said that it would pay families almost
$1,400 for each person who died as a result of the quake in order to help
defray funeral costs and other expenses. The government’s top tourism official
announced that climbs of Mount Everest may resume, if climbers decide to go
ahead. Many of the climbers who had hoped to summit Mount Everest have already
left; at least 19 were killed in massive avalanches triggered by the
earthquake.
But the rescues were the
news of the day. At a news conference, Bill Berger, who is overseeing rescue
efforts for the United States Agency for International Development, spoke of
how extraordinary it was to save people beyond the so-called “golden” hours
after a quake when the likelihood of finding survivors are best. That period,
he suggested, usually ends after three days.
“We had a really good
day. Actually we had a great day,” he said. “Members of our urban search and
rescue team were able to pull a live victim out of a pile, and I think for us
and the Nepalis, given us new hope in a dire situation.”
Ellen Barry
reported from Katmandu and Gardiner Harris from New Delhi. Chris Buckley and
Bhadra Sharma contributed reporting from Katmandu.
[The company that operated the bus is owned at least in part by the family of Parkash Singh Badal, the chief minister of Punjab state, according to local news media reports. Mr. Badal’s son, Sukhbir, is his deputy chief minister, and his daughter-in-law, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, is a minister in the central government.]
By Hari Kumar and Nida Najar
NEW DELHI — A young woman traveling
in Punjab on Wednesday evening was killed after she and her mother were
molested and thrown from a private bus by a group of men, the mother said.
Four men were arrested on
Thursday in connection with the case: the driver and conductor of the bus and
two other employees of the bus line. They were variously charged by the police
in the Moga district with murder, attempted murder, molestation and conspiracy,
as well as violating a law relating to crimes committed against members of
India’s lower castes, to which the two women belonged.
The young woman sustained
a head injury and died immediately, according to a police constable in the
district, who declined to give his name because he was not authorized to speak
to the news media. The constable said the mother was taken to a hospital for
treatment.
The company that operated
the bus is owned at least in part by the family of Parkash Singh Badal, the
chief minister of Punjab state, according to local news media reports. Mr.
Badal’s son, Sukhbir, is his deputy chief minister, and his daughter-in-law,
Harsimrat Kaur Badal, is a minister in the central government.
“It is a big incident. It
pains me very much,” the elder Mr. Badal told reporters on Thursday.
“Unfortunately, the bus is ours. I think it is a big mistake — it is a
Himalayan blunder.”
Brutal attacks on women
using public transportation have repeatedly made headlines in India, most
notably in 2012 when a young woman nicknamed Nirbhaya was gang-raped on
a bus in New Delhi and died of her injuries. Her death prompted fierce protests
across the country and demands for improved security for women in public.
Lawmakers demanded an
impartial investigation of the Punjab attack, citing the connections between
the bus company and the family of Mr. Badal, whose regional political party is
allied with the national ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Ravneet Singh, a member
of Parliament of the opposition Indian National Congress Party, called the
episode “Punjab’s Nirbhaya,” according to the Indian news channel NDTV.
