Rescue efforts called off as grieving relatives of Nepal quake victims prepare for cremations

CHIURI, Nepal - Sobbing relatives of victims from Nepal’s worst earthquake in eight years cremated their loved ones on Sunday as rescuers wrapped up efforts to look for people who could still be trapped in the rubble of collapsed buildings.

Surrounding about 10 bodies shrouded in white cloth in a tarpaulin tent, relatives prepared garlands of marigolds for the Hindu cremation rites held on the banks of the Bheri River.

Earlier, Mr Baljit Mahar, 32, sat cross-legged by the body of his seven-year-old son, one of 157 people killed in the late Friday quake in the west of the Himalayan nation, according to the authorities’ latest count, along with about 250 injured.

“We could not save him, while all the other six members of the family were able to rush out as soon as the earthquake jolted us from our sleep,” Mr Mahar told Reuters in the remote village of Chiuri in the hilly Jajarkot district.

He pulled his son’s body from the crumbled facade of their single-storey mud-and-stone house.

The quake registered a magnitude of 6.4, said Nepal’s National Seismological Centre, while the United States Geological Survey measured it at 5.6.

It was Nepal’s deadliest since 2015, when about 9,000 people were killed by two quakes that reduced whole towns and centuries-old temples to rubble and destroyed more than a million houses, at a cost of US$6 billion (S$8 billion) to the country’s US$40 billion economy.

After Friday’s quake, thousands of buildings in Jajarkot and the neighbouring Rukum West district collapsed or developed cracks, making them unliveable.

“All my belongings and clothes are under the debris,” Mr Mahar said. “I have been left without anything.”

Altogether, 105 people died in Jajarkot and another 52 in neighbouring Rukum district, officials said, and search-and-rescue operations had been concluded.

“We are in touch with all areas and rescue operations have wrapped up,” said provincial police spokesman Gopal Chandra Bhattarai.

“But we are still on alert as this is a remote area, and there might be some isolated areas from where information has not flowed.”

In Kathmandu, the government said it will make immediate arrangements for shelter, food and safety for displaced families, and provide US$1,500 to the families of those killed as immediate relief. The government will also treat the injured free of charge.

Some survivors in Chiuri, who belong to the “untouchable” Dalit community according to Nepal’s Hindu customs, said no government representative had yet visited or offered help.

Survivors said they heard the loud noises of buildings collapsing soon after the quake struck.

“There was a big plume of dust, and we could not even breathe easily or see anything,” said Mr Shanta Bahadur B.K., while watching over the bodies of six family members. His mother was being treated at a hospital in the nearest city, Nepalgunj.

“I am shocked to lose almost all my family members,” said Mr B.K., 41, who farms millet and corn. “It is an unbearable pain, but I must face and bear it. What to do?”

In Khalanga, the capital of Jajarkot district, survivors slept on the streets near damaged houses, wrapped in blankets to beat the cold.

“There was one funeral pyre for each body that was cremated according to our culture and tradition,” said Mr B.K. REUTERS, AFP