It is with horror and shock that I have watched the events of the past 30 odd hours in Nepal, from my high rise apartment in Astana. With horror I regard every news flash, every picture or video that alters my memory of Kathmandu. I snatch quick glimpses of buildings and neighborhoods I knew - the main road in Pulchowk, Lalitpur, with some damaged buildings. The stupa at Swayambu, cracked, its spire toppled, and other buildings around the perimeter of the stupa crumbled. The great Durbar Margs of Lalitpur, Kathmandu and Bhaktapur - destroyed, most of the temples piles of rubble, brick and timber. Other things I hear about but have not seen any proof - the stupa at Boddha evidently destroyed, or damaged beyond repair, and damage to one of the buildings, or more, at Pashupatinath. Neighborhoods destroyed, roads ripped up, and now no water, no electricity, sanitation gone.
All the time I lived in Nepal, where I lived off and on from late 2006 up until 2013, earthquakes were never far from my mind. Sure, there was nothing you could do about it. An earthquakes comes, you run outside and watch out for falling debris, buildings, power-lines. But all you had to do was to look around Kathmandu - or Lalitpur, where we lived - and see the state of some of the buildings, the lack of any sort of building with earthquakes in mind. Buildings built tight, flush next to each other, old, un-reinforced brick. No green spaces, no planning, just the mangy, unplanned urban sprawl of a country with little infrastructure, and a government too fractious and corrupt to do enact any sort of meaningful economic plan.
And now this. At least all friends and family are alive and unharmed. Some have lost their homes. All are uncertain and on edge. sleeping out doors. I pray that the international community, that India, the US, the UK spring into action and help. Nepal cannot do it on its own. This might actually be a golden opportunity to rise from the ashes and create a country with a real infrastructure, with real working sanitation, a water supply that works, and an electrical grid without brownouts. But Nepal should fear that neighbor to the north, as whatever they offer, you can bet it will never be altruistic.
All the time I lived in Nepal, where I lived off and on from late 2006 up until 2013, earthquakes were never far from my mind. Sure, there was nothing you could do about it. An earthquakes comes, you run outside and watch out for falling debris, buildings, power-lines. But all you had to do was to look around Kathmandu - or Lalitpur, where we lived - and see the state of some of the buildings, the lack of any sort of building with earthquakes in mind. Buildings built tight, flush next to each other, old, un-reinforced brick. No green spaces, no planning, just the mangy, unplanned urban sprawl of a country with little infrastructure, and a government too fractious and corrupt to do enact any sort of meaningful economic plan.
And now this. At least all friends and family are alive and unharmed. Some have lost their homes. All are uncertain and on edge. sleeping out doors. I pray that the international community, that India, the US, the UK spring into action and help. Nepal cannot do it on its own. This might actually be a golden opportunity to rise from the ashes and create a country with a real infrastructure, with real working sanitation, a water supply that works, and an electrical grid without brownouts. But Nepal should fear that neighbor to the north, as whatever they offer, you can bet it will never be altruistic.
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