'We just fled; we didn't even have time to take any money'

Left with nothing, many survivors staying at a relief camp in UP, recount the horror of Saturday’s earthquake to Sharat Pradhan/Rediff.com

“It seems the ground is still trembling below my feet,” says Suresh Sai, a survivor of the Nepal earthquake, who continues to reel from the horror of the 7.9 magnitude earthquake that struck Nepal on Saturday.

Four days later, homeless and penniless, the 41-year-old says he still hallucinates about the horrors from Saturday when his world turned upside down and life, as he knew, came to an end.

Sai, like many others, is now staying at a special relief camp in Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur area, which is about 90 kilometre away from the Indo-Nepal border.

“Only now do I feel a sense of relief from the panic that had engulfed me and my family for the past 96 hours,” he said.

Recounting the ordeal, the former resident of Rajasthan, said he had never felt panic like he did on Saturday. “As I was heading home with my 16-year-old son, I heard the screams of my wife and daughter, who managed to rush out of our apartment in Bhotenahal locality.”

He adds that as of today, he has no belongings, no possessions, as he had to leave it all behind. “I was tempted to re-enter my home to at least pick up some cash and jewellery, but neither my wife nor I could muster the courage to take risk. The building had trembled so violently that it could give way anytime.”

Leaving Kathmandu has been a painful affair for Mahendra Ranawat, a 44-year-old cloth merchant in Himalayan kingdom. “We had no choice but to flee our home. After tragedy struck, I tried to take the first flight home, but after spending two futile nights at the airport, I jumped at the opportunity when the UP government sent buses for people.”

His wife Rekha Ranawat recalls how she felt on Saturday – or as she calls it when the world came to an end. “I thought it was all over when the fourth floor apartment in which we lived in Kathmandu started shaking. My husband, our two children, all of us clung to each other and we decided to hold on to the main pillar of our building as we felt that now that the end was not far, at least we could be together at that moment”, she recalled.

More than 1,000 Indians from Rajasthan who had been living in Nepal are now living in the camp, which is sprawled over the Gorakhpur university campus.

Officials are on round-the-clock duty to receive evacuees arriving from the earthquake hit Nepal .

“As many as 7,235 persons have been received and sent to different destinations of their choice from this camp so far,” Gorakhpur additional district magistrate Dinesh Chandra said.

“Apart from basic medical facilities, food and packaged drinking water is also made available to everyone at all times of the day and night and each person is also being provided a bottle of mineral water and a biscuit packet on departure from here”, he said. 

The entire area in and around the camp is being repeatedly disinfected and fogged to rid the place of mosquitoes, which are a menace in the region.

Divisional Commissioner Rakesh Ojha and district magistrate Ranjan Kumar are personally supervising the upkeep at the relief camp.