Nepal PM faces ire of quake victims; toll crosses 6,000

Protests on Wednesday greeted Nepalese Prime Minister Sushil Koirala in relief camps as anger spilled over to the streets with people seizing food and water supplies, four days after a devastating quake claimed over 6,000 lives.

People vented their anger when the Prime Minister visited their camps to assess relief work and complained that they were not getting any aid. Koirala told them that he had come to see for himself the difficult situation Nepal is faced with and assured them that help would reach them at the earliest.

Thousands of desperate Nepalese, who have been staying in the open with no houses to return to and fearing more devastation from aftershocks, clashed with police and seized water-bottles and other essential supplies.

Frayed tempers were also witnessed at the main bus station here where quake victims had gathered to get out of Kathmandu but the promised buses failed to arrive. Scuffles broke out between angry crowds and the riot police which arrived there to control the situation.

On Tuesday, Koirala had said the toll could reach 10,000 because information from the affected remote villages is yet to come. More than 11,000 people have been injured in the quake, the worst in over 80 years.

Rescuers are still struggling to reach remote mountainous areas in the Himalayan nation, where relief efforts have been hampered by heavy rain and landslide even as global help poured in.

Officials warned that they faced problems in getting aid into the country and then delivering it to some of the remote communities in desperate need in Nepal.

“We’ve been left starving in the cold and the best this government can give us is this queue. Why are they so slow?” said Rajana, who goes by only one name.

“I keep hearing on the news that all governments and aid agencies are here, but where are they? Our government is totally absent. Forget shelter, they couldn’t even give us water,” she said as she queued up along with many others for a bus to her native village.

A government spokesman said that helicopters had been dropping tents, dry food and medicine to remote villages but they were yet to reach many isolated communities.

When helicopters managed to land, they are often mobbed by villagers pleading for food and water, or to be evacuated.

Nepal has declared three days of mourning for the victims of Saturday’s earthquake.

The rescuers gave yet to reach some of the worst-hit villages in Gorkha, Dhading, Sindhupalchok, Kavre and Nuwakot, among other districts.