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Nepal earthquake: ‘It was absolute chaos’ Kimberley resident Robyn Duncan describes the moment the quake hit and the aftermath
T R E VO R C R AW L E Y
Kimberley native Robyn Duncan is safely home after experiencing firsthand the devastating earthquake and
subsequent aftermath in Nepal last weekend. Duncan, along with her friend, Kara Brissette, were there to experience the unique
landscape and culture of the Himalayas when the 7.8-magnitude quake hit in what is turning out to be one of the nation’s worst natu-
ral disasters in over 80 years. Duncan had been in the country for just over a month, beginning their trip in Shivalaya,
and hiked into the Khumbu region, where they began the Three Passes Trek. However, after a bout of high-altitude sickness, she
NICOLE KORAN PHOTO
Over the past two days the Mayor of Questa, New Mexico, has been visiting Kimberley to learn how it dealt with the blow of losing the town’s major employer. Questa faces a future similar to that of Kimberley in 2001 when the Sullivan mine closed. The Chevron molybdenum mine which supported the Questa economy over the past hundred years is recently closed. Mayor Don McCormick, Councillors Albert Hoglund and Jack Ratcliffe (now retired), Mick Henningson, Larry Haber, Bruce Donald and Don Boyle gave generously of their time which the folks from Questa appreciated greatly. As Mayor Gallegos said to Mayor McCormick upon departing,” Thank you for your tremendous hospitality. You have given us great guidance as we take on our challenges. I hope that there are many opportunities for our townsfolk to engage with each other in the future.” Questa is a community of 1,800 people located in the northern part of New Mexico.
Ranchers take beefs to RDEK T RE VO R C R AWL EY
Invasive weeds and mud bogging out at Lake Koocanusa were two topics brought up by local ranchers who recently met with Kootenay East MLA Bill Bennett. Stan Doehle, the RDEK board director for Area B, attended the meeting earlier in
April as ranchers with the Kootenay Livestock Association to bring forward concerns about invasive weeds and the number of people mud bogging during the upcoming May long weekend. “Rangeland is slowly being taken over by invasive weeds and the Ministry [of Forests
Lands and Natural Resource Operations] is working with those ranchers to put funding in place to put control onto the weeds,” said Doehle. “…When you get the quads that spread out from the RV parks and the number of them is a huge problem on that rangeland.”
In a letter written by Randy Reay, the president of the KLA, local ranchers are asking for the provincial government to maintain or increase funding for weed control, which is aversely affecting the rangeland.
See RANCHERS, Page 4
headed to the Annapurna region. On Saturday, April 25, Duncan was riding a bus from Pokhara to Kathmandu, the national capital, when the earthquake hit. “We were passing through a small village when the quake struck,” Duncan said. “At first, you don’t realize what is happening. I thought we had hit something. But when the bus didn’t stop moving and we looked outside the window to see the ground moving and everything shaking and swaying, it clicked. “It was absolute chaos. People were streaming out of their homes, and a long line of people were using a long piece of bamboo to try to prop up the electrical wires that were swinging dangerously.” The bus stopped and Duncan thought the wires were going to collapse on the vehicle. “People were screaming,” she said. “No one knew what to do. It was utter chaos. In hindsight, the bus was probably the safest place I could’ve been, given where we were at the time.” Duncan was able to contact her family almost immediately after to tell them she was safe. At that time, she was the only passenger on the bus with a connection to the outside world with her cell phone, and was able to learn through her family that a massive earthquake had struck which had affected the entire country. Remarkably, the bus wasn’t damaged and it was able to continue the journey to Kathmandu almost right
“We are so grateful to the Americans for opening their doors to us. I don’t know what we would’ve done without them — our hotel kicked us out … the building beside it had fallen down and they had pulled bodies out of it — we had nowhere to go, no food and no water.” Robyn Duncan
away. “We were stopped a lot along the road — there was significant rock fall and accidents along the way, but we made it through to Kathmandu by the evening and I was able to rendezvous with Kara that night,” Duncan said. While a picture tells a thousand words, Duncan says it’s hard to adequately describe the chaos, tragedy and destruction facing the Nepali people. “Whole buildings were flattened, many with people trapped inside,” she said. “So many of the heritage sites were just gone. Roads had huge cracks in them. People were terrified of the aftershocks that we knew were to come and everyone poured into the open spaces and set up tent camps. Thousands upon thousands of people were outside.”
See NEPAL, Page 4