Near Nepal quake epicenter, desperate villagers await help

Paslang is only 3 km up the mountain from the town of Gorkha, the staging area for rescue and aid operations

There is almost nothing left of this village but enormous piles of broken red bricks and heaps of mud and dust.

One of those piles was once Bhoj Kumar Thapa's home, where his pregnant wife pushed their 5-year-old daughter to safety in a last, desperate act before it collapsed and killed her during Saturday's earthquake.

Thapa and others in Paslang were still waiting yesterday for the government to deliver food, tents any kind of aid to this poor mountain village near the epicenter of the quake that killed more than 4,700 people, injured over 8,000 and left tens of thousands homeless.

"When I got home, there was nothing," said Thapa, an army soldier. "Everything was broken. My wife she was dead." He was put on leave from his army unit to mourn, one of the few Nepalese soldiers not deployed in the country's massive rescue and recovery operation. But instead of sadness, there is anger.

"Only the other villagers who have also lost their homes are helping me. But we get nothing from the government," Thapa said.

An official came, took some pictures and left without delivering anything to the village of about 300 people northwest of the capital of Kathmandu, he said.

"I get angry, but what can I do? I am also working for the government," Thapa said. "I went to ask the police if they could at least send some men to help us salvage our things, but they said they have no one to send."

Paslang is only 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) up the mountain from the town of Gorkha, the district headquarters and staging area for rescue and aid operations.

But the villagers, who have no idea when they might get help, are still sleeping together in the mud and sharing whatever scraps of food they can pull from beneath their ruined buildings. Three people in the hamlet have died.

In Kathmandu, thousands of people were lining up at bus stations today morning hoping to reach their hometowns in rural areas.

Some have had little news of family and loved ones since Saturday's magnitude 7.8 quake caused widespread destruction and disrupted communications. Others are scared of staying close to the epicenter, northwest of Kathmandu.

"I am hoping to get on a bus, any bus heading out of Kathmandu. I am too scared to be staying in Kathmandu," said Raja Gurung, who wanted to get to his home in western Nepal.

"The house near my rented apartment collapsed. It was horrible. I have not gone indoors in many days. I would rather leave than a live a life of fear in Kathmandu.