Emergency work is underway in Nepal in the wake of the earthquake Saturday which has already cost over 4000 lives and resulted in devastating damage.

“We have become internally displaced now,” Laxman Niroula, Information and Technology Officer with Finn Church Aid’s partner, the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) in Kathmandu, says.

“We put up a tarpaulin and a mat, and me and my family are sleeping outside.”

FCA’s country coordinator Lila Bashayal working in Kathmandu is in similar situation with his family.
As aftershocks continue to make the situation difficult for the many who have already lost their homes, the LWF has begun carrying out immediate life-saving emergency work.

The aid workers have hardly slept over the past 48 hours. Since the earthquake hit, the emergency team has been working to attend to people in need.

Over the weekend, the LWF distributed tarpaulins, hygiene kits and ready-made food to about 400 families in Kathmandu. Along with assessing the situation in remote communities, LWF priorities are now to provide water, sanitation and hygiene materials, as well as emergency shelter to people who lost their homes or who are staying outside for fear of aftershocks.

The LWF, which has been operating in Nepal since 1984. Finn Church Aid has been its partner from the beginning.

“There are 100 aftershocks each day. Every time it starts shaking people run outside. Yesterday there was a big aftershock. People here are crying. They are scared,” Laxman says.

“We have been personally involved in rescuing neighbors. There was a five storey building which collapsed, there were eight people in it. We pulled out two people. Others managed to get out on their own.”

FCA’s office in Western Nepal is supporting the logistics to deliver the assistance from India to Nepal. FCA is working together with LWF, Nepalese government and ACT Alliance.