So, it’s been three years since my whole earth shook.
After the first jolt, I was thankful that I was alive and living, then the thoughts about my family and my loved ones started worrying me. I was in the garden looking across the wall that had fallen down. All of the tenants and the neighbors gathered in my garden to seek recluse in my garden.
Then arrived my dad and my sister called to make sure everyone was fine at home. Take note that the whole network infrastructure had taken a hit and the electricity was also cut off for the next two days. After an hour I heard the news that Dharahara had fallen, and there are so many people still trapped under the rubbles at Ason. I went to scan through the neighbourhood and found that someone else’s wall had also collapsed. Me and dad traversed around making sure that everyone in the neighbour is fine and not facing any difficulties, then we walked towards his sister’s house and saw the damanaged high rises on the way. Our neighbourhood was relatively not so affected as others, but then you start hearing stories and get scared about the aftermath. Then we went to our sister’s place and got their statuses and make sure they were fine.
Me and my dad went on to Om hospital to check on the situation, I might have forgot to mention that I was carrying my DSLR camera and taking photos of the whole area. It was sad to see hundreds of peope on the premises of the hospital shouting in agony and when we went to the back there I saw the scene that I could not believe. Maybe around 100 corpses laying on the parking lot and their family members beside the corpse. I then realised how lucky I was, and then we had to come back home cause the emergency response wanted no distraction. That scene changed my whole thoughts regarding my existence, I was not so sad but I could not click a photo of a guy who was crying over the dead body cause of empathy. He stared at me as I was about to take photo then I realised that I should not shoot, and there is probably something better I could do than documenting the memory. Later that day, me and my bro Ade went to Ason to check how it was like, we met Bange while coming back and then drank a bottle of beer to cheers for survival.
The scene at home was chaotic, there were around 40 people who were taking refuge at hour house and we had that tent, not to mention that I had my camping tent with me cause I was staying overnight at my office the day before after party and I returned the same day with my tent, which I had brought to the office cause of Nepal Banda some weeks back.
But it was harsh, nobody wanted to go back inside as there was fear in everyone’s mind. There was no rich or poor, but everyone fighting for survival. I wished that everyone could see the situation in the same light as me. There were people who wanted to communicate with their faily. My friends called me to make sure their parents are doing fine.
The next two days were almost the same except for the rain which didn’t let us sleep and everyone was looking for charger to charge their gadgets, luckily I had my power bank charged and on the third day, the power supply came back. I went out the third day to the wild, where I thought I might be helpful, I was sick of seeing a lot of dead bodies and counting the casualties, I just didn’t want to sit back and watch the things unfold so I went out, trying to help people in different places then I realized that I didn’t have any expertise, the course I had taken during my bachelors, ECE safety and disaster management.
After 3 days, we decided to conduct relief effort on our own, everything was on shortage. And prices of tents skyrocketed. It was hard to procure all of the goods. We received some personal donations, and started buying out things and get into the ground, the reality after 5 days was different, peole didn’t really want donations or food, or even healthcare services that we provided. We felt like there could be things that could be done better than that, there were political parties who went there and saw this as an opportunity to promote their parties and their agendas, trying to preach to people that they are receiving these donations cause of the connections they had made. Whereas, we felt cheated when they diverted us to a different place saying that they need our help more than people at other location. Despite the misfortune, we learned a lot regarding how to manage the crowd and how to record and keep up with the people’s expectations.
We went there for the next two weeks I believe, I distributed some tents to some of the staff in my company as well, the guards and Jib dai. They were thankful, I don’t know if they even remember me now. Conducted the relief drive through office as well, they collected a lot of donations but I don’t really know how they distributed them. It was a shame, and I realised that people are just like that, everyone’s greed comes first. Maybe I am no different, but I had desire to help and contribute to other’s happiness.