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On April 25 at 11:56 a.m. the earth shook at the top of the world. Avalanches cascaded off Mount Everest; small farming villages throughout Nepal were leveled; Kathmandu fell into a state of panic as a 7.8-magnitude earthquake left thousands dead. Damage was catastrophic. Nepal was already one of the world’s poorest countries lacking infrastructure, organization, or any plan to handle a disaster of this proportion. Aid groups from around the globe dispatched small crews to help with collapsed buildings, trapped Nepalese, road-system failures, and entire villages leveled. In one case, the 400-resident village of Langtang, located on a popular trekking route for tourists, was completely buried under rock and ice. The event took place in less than 15 seconds. Then on May 12 the unimaginable happened: a second earthquake struck. This 7.3-magitude quake made a bad problem much worse, further eroding the mental confidence of many Nepalese as they raced into fields fearing the “big one” was coming next. The death toll for both earthquakes has topped 8,500 and many are still unaccounted for. Three weeks after the first earthquake, aid groups began packing up and leaving behind limited resources. As of May 19, a total of 15 helicopters existed in all of Nepal, a country nearly the size of the state of Illinois. Global media attention has shifted away from this catastrophe. Layer in hundreds of aftershocks; aid groups challenged by government politics; a looming monsoon season; and an estimated 500,000 homes destroyed, and you have a nation facing years of rebuilding. >>
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