Relief for the 8 million people affected by the devastating Nepal earthquake six months ago is being disrupted by delays in reinstating the Nepal Government’s National Reconstruction Agency, Oxfam said.
Australia’s pledge to the recovery of earthquake-rocked Nepal at a Kathmandu donor conference yesterday has been dwarfed by more generous members of the international community, Oxfam said today.
Time is running out for aid workers to get vital assistance and pre-positioned supplies to people affected by the Nepal earthquakes, with the monsoon season about to start and tens of thousands of people still living outdoors in makeshift shelters.
One month on since the first earthquake hit Nepal, Oxfam is working with mountain guides and porters to deliver life-saving aid to the most remote communities before the fast approaching monsoon hits the country.
The rapidly approaching monsoon season in Nepal threatens to bring another round of disasters for survivors of the recent earthquake who are still spending each night sleeping in the open, Oxfam said.
Survivors of the second major earthquake to hit Nepal in less than three weeks have been left reeling after already damaged buildings collapsed around them, with reports of ongoing aftershocks and more than 40 further casualties increasing the troubled country’s heartache.
Oxfam is monitoring the situation in Nepal after reports a 7.3 magnitude earthquake rocked the small country, just weeks after a 7.9 magnitute quake killed more than 7,900 people, and reduced parts of its capital and remote villages in the Himalayas to rubble.
Oxfam’s humanitarian team have reached the Nepal earthquake epicentre Gorkha and are working to meet the needs of earthquake survivors desperate for food, water and shelter.
Oxfam is aiming to help an initial 350,000 people hit by the earthquake in Nepal, providing clean water, toilets and shelter to thousands of people.
Oxfam teams are now in Kathmandu responding to Nepal’s most powerful earthquake in decades and are reporting struggling hospitals and morgues, widespread homelessness and a severe lack of clean water.