Nepal Toll Rises After Worst Quake In Decades

[jitagawn]

Agreed ,I remember countless earthquakes and drills in school but was only in one "big one"-89'

 

My grandmother used to tell me about the 06' quake.

 

In 89' many locals all ended up at Vesuvio's in North Beach drinking by candle light. into the wee hours

 

My heart goes out to Nepal and Katmandu...

[pasathai1]

lets hope the international aid does not turn into a cash cow for the high level scammers like it did after the Haiti incident.

 

also, they are sending medicine from far off, not from India ?

[Coss]

 

 

 

[YimSiam]

I don't see much ( if any) rebar sticking out on the buildings rubble on the tv images

 

It might not be the diplomatic thing to say right now, but frankly, the risks in Nepal are massive and have been recognized for years by virtually everyone - I worked there for a few years about a decade back, and there we buildings going up that were so rickety and feeble, you couldn't believe it. This Bhaktapur area that's been hit is where they fire all the bricks - stack 'em up on each other, a little Indian cement powder, skimp on the rebar and ignore protocols for slabs - you didn't have to be an engineer to know there would be problems. With a big quake like this - enough to take down temples that have survived prior quakes, apparently - I would have thought we'd be measuring the dead at the hundred thousand level, really, and looking over a Kathmandu valley full of flattened rubble. Those outcomes are not what we're seeing today - fewer dead, and more or less, Kathmandu is still standing. I don't know how seismic stuff works, but I'm assuming that a big release of energy like this one kind of buys time between now and any larger event? If Nepal has now another few hundred years before something bigger, well, that's a positive - the price being paid today could have been so much higher than it seems to be thus far.

 

(Of course, the situation may be incredibly worse than we've heard so far, in rural areas, with the news just not getting through effectively yet... We shall see. The Nepal government is just unspeakably incompetent, a bunch of high-caste Hindu guys in their little suits and caps, with zero idea of what they are supposed to do, or how they might do it - Nepalis are great people generally, but they are ruled by a tiny clique of jackasses from the feudal era, who are not even good at corruption, despite spending most of their energy on it... It was kind of sad/funny when it was peacetime, then it got a bit darker when their failings were highlighted during the Maoist war, but this emergency is going to cast a bright light on government and administration there, and it will not be pretty... Probably India and China would be best off just dividing up districts between themselves, addressing the urgent needs, and then handing things back to the hapless Nepalis when it's back to the usual buffoonery, lives no longer in the balance and the country no longer on the world's front page...)

[Coss]

lets hope the international aid does not turn into a cash cow for the high level scammers like it did after the Haiti incident.

also, they are sending medicine from far off, not from India ?

 

I wonder if Mid West Christians are gonna try and kidnap kids, under the guise of rescue.

 

I wonder if NGOs are gonna say there's an army of pedophiles stealing youngun's for bouncy bouncy.

[Flashermac]

Went to my local Nepali restaurant yesterday. The owner's wife said her family in Kathmandu are "living outside". Apparently, people are living in tents, afraid to go back into the remaining buildings in case an after shock hits.

[baa99]

Nepal ranks below Cambodia in GDP per capita.