In a powerful report, Nepalese-born CNN correspondent Sumnima Udas surveys, by military helicopter, the scale of destruction wrought across her homeland by Saturday’s earthquake.
As the helicopter traverses the ring of mountains that surround Kathmandu, it becomes clear just how complicated the rescue and recovery operation will be. Scores of small communities are spread out throughout the mountainous terrain, making the distribution of aid particularly challenging.
The situation is only compounded by landslides, triggered by the quakes, which have blocked vast swathes of the national highway.
Stopping into a community hospital in the Kathmandu Valley, the CNN team are shown just how desperate the situation has become. The health centre only has a capacity of a few hundred but already there are over a thousand patients here.
“Our human resources, the space, medical supplies and power back-up – everything is limited,” says Dr Rajendra Koju. “But we are trying to stretch everything as much as possible to each and every patient to save their lives/”
The tragedy is though, that once the injured have recovered, the staff here are unable to discharge them as – with their homes and livelihoods destroyed – many of them simply have nowhere else to go.
