April 30, 2015

NEPAL TEENAGER IS RESCUED FROM RUBBLE FIVE DAYS AFTER EARTHQUAKE

[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.]

   

Watch video here >>
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.