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Lanka’s disaster-response team flies to quake-hit Nepal; death toll tops 1,200
View(s):Sri Lanka early this morning sent a team of 159 relief workers, including four doctors, to earthquake-hit Nepal where more than 1,200 people were confirmed dead by last night with thousands more reported missing. The disaster-response team largely consisting of military personnel left on a Sri Lanka Air Force transport aircraft.
The move came after President Maithripala Sirisena in consultation with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe appointed a committee to coordinate relief efforts, a spokesman for the Prime Minister’s Office said.Mr. Wickremesinghe spoke to the Nepali Prime Minister Sushil Koirala and expressed the condolences of the Sri Lankan government and the people.
The Government also opened a hotline to assist Sri Lankans living in Nepal where more than 100 Lankan students are reportedly studying in universities. A small number of Lankans also live and work there. There were no immediate reports of any Sri Lankan killed or wounded in the 7.9 magnitude earthquake, the worst in 81 years with its epicentre 80 km east of Nepal’s second largest city, Pokhara.
Nivaritha Sashitharan, a Lankan medical student in the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, told the Sunday Times she narrowly escaped the disaster. “I left my college hostel with another Sri Lankan student to meet some members of the visiting Sri Lankan female soccer team. It was while we were on the way the earthquake struck. Later I found out that our hostel had been badly damaged in the earthquake,” she said.
The first thing Nivaritha, who has just completed her six year medical degree in Nepal, did was to contact her parents in Batticaloa and assured them that she was safe. She said she would like to stay on for another two weeks at least to assist those injured in the disaster before returning home.
A SriLankan Airlines flight is also due to fly to Kathmandu midday today with dry rations for the affected persons. It will fly back the Lankans including the students stranded there. In a statement last night, the Government expressed its condolences as well as that of the people of Sri Lanka and said it was deeply saddened by the tragic loss of lives and extensive damage to property caused by the earthquake. The massive earthquake tore through large parts of Nepal, toppling office blocks and towers in Kathmandu and triggering a deadly avalanche at Everest base camp. The quake also tore through the middle of highways in the capital and also caused damage to the country’s only international airport which was briefly closed.