When things fell apart

Experiencing an earthquake in the middle of a mountain is scary, to say the least. On the fifth day of the killer earthquake in Nepal (magnitude 7.8 on the Richter scale), when I was sipping tea in a road-side shop in Mamti-Piple hamlet in Kavre district of Nepal, the earth shook under my feet.

In hindsight, it was only one of the minor aftershocks (M 3.9 on the Richter scale). But for a few fleeting seconds, it scared the living daylights out of me and the other locals in the tea stall. Everyone ran out to the open as the tremor was accompanied by a roar coming from within the rocks.

From the day, I landed in Kathmandu in the dead of the night, I experienced several aftershocks sitting inside my hotel room, which, being an RCC structure, was presumed safer, notwithstanding the cracks it had developed from the from the first big one. In the past, I had experienced numerous aftershocks in Bhuj in the aftermath of the killer temblor, but none were so terrifying as the one in the mountains of Nepal. And it was not merely the shaking, but reverberations in the rocks that made it a frightening experience.
Those few seconds helped me better understand why thousands of Nepalese in the Kathmandu valley or in the hilly terrains of Sindhupalchok, Karve, Dhading and Gorkha districts are apprehensive of going back to their homes, even if the structures are in a decent condition. They have all seen how the quiet nature can turn ferocious within a split second.

On the same day, a couple of hours later, I had several more scary moments when I travelled in a rickety bus carrying relief material on a river bed, comprising small gravels and big boulders. The destination was the twin villages of Sipaghat and Bhotar in Sindhupalchok district on the banks of the Indravati river. As the road to Sipaghat was blocked by debris, the bus had to take a detour through the river bed. My vehicle, in which I had followed the bus until then, was unable to negotiate that route. So, I got off and boarded the relief bus.

The next few minutes gave me jitters. As the bus trundled along on the river bed, several times it tilted so much to one side, that I thought it would keel over. But somehow the driver managed to bring the vehicle on all tyres, only to be tilted equally dangerously on the other side. The vehicle danced on the riverbed for close to 10 minutes before discovering a dirt track to climb up and enter Sipaghat from where it crossed the river over a bridge. The village greeted me with the sight of 18 men with shaved heads, which meant they had all lost a dear one in the killer quake.

I wanted to leave early. But as the relief distribution took time, I was on my own during the return trip. The journey involved crossing the river using a swaying, suspension bridge and then a barefoot walk for almost a kilometre and a half on the rocky river bed. With the shoes in my hand and rucksack on the back, I slowly walked back to my vehicle.