People flee Kathmandu as tremors spark fear

Thousands of Nepalis began fleeing the capital Kathmandu on Monday, terror-stricken by two days of powerful aftershocks and fearing shortages of food and water after an earthquake that killed more than 4,000 people. 

Roads leading out of the mountain valley city of one million were jammed with people, many with babies in their arms, trying to climb onto buses or hitch a ride aboard cars and trucks. 

Huge queues had formed at Kathmandu airport with people desperate to get a flight out. Many said they had slept in the open since Saturday's quake, either because their homes were flattened or they were terrified that aftershocks would bring them crashing down. 

“We are escaping,” said Krishna Muktari, who runs a small grocery store in Kathmandu city, standing at a major road intersection. "How can you live here? I have got children, they can't be rushing out of the house all night.”

Overwhelmed authorities were trying to cope with a shortage of drinking water and food, as well as the threat of disease. 

The sick and wounded were lying out in the open in Kathmandu, unable to find beds in the devastated city's hospitals. Surgeons set up an operating theatre inside a tent in the grounds of Kathmandu Medical College. 

“We are overwhelmed with rescue and assistance requests from all across the country,” said Deepak Panda, a member of the country's disaster management. 

High in the Himalayas, hundreds of climbers were staying put at the Mount Everest base camp where a huge avalanche after the earthquake killed 17 people in the single worst disaster to hit the world's highest mountain. 

Rescue teams, helped by clear weather, used helicopters to airlift scores of people stranded at higher altitudes, two at a time. 

Across Kathmandu and beyond, exhausted families laid mattresses out on streets and erected tents to shelter from rain. People queued for water dispensed from the back of trucks, while the few stores still open had next to nothing on their shelves. Crowds jostled for medicine at one pharmacy. 

The United Nations Childreds Fund said nearly one million children in Nepal were severely affected by the quake, and warned of waterborne and infectious diseases. 

In the temple town of Bhaktapur, east of Kathmandu, centuries old buildings had collapsed and those that were still standing had cracks. Many residents were living in tents in a school compound. 

“We have become refugees,” said Sarga Dhaoubadel, a management student whose ancestors had built her Bhaktapur family home four centuries ago. They were subsisting on instant noodles and fruit, she said. 

“No one from the government has come to offer us even a glass of water," she said. "Nobody has come to even check our health. We are totally on our own here. All we can hope is that the aftershocks stop and we can try and get back home."

Worst yet to come

 The next earthquake could have a magnitude of up to 9, but it is hard to tell whether it will strike in a few years' time, or two centuries from now.

Says Pascal Bernard of the Institute of Earth Physics of Paris, "Yes, the worst is yet to come, but it may be in a few centuries' time," he said.