World unites for Nepal quake victims

HE AIN'T HEAVY: A woman carries a child next to collapsed houses yesterday in Bhaktapur, on the outskirts of Kathmandu, two days after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Nepal 

International aid agencies, including South Africa's Gift of the Givers, are preparing massive relief operations in Nepal as the government here says all South Africans have been accounted for.

A Gift of the Givers team of search-and-rescue and trauma specialists was due to leave the country last night or early today in a chartered plane.

The World Health Organisation has begun distributing medical supplies and the World Food Programme was yesterday loading a plane with high-energy biscuits in Dubai.

Many of the 1million people of the Nepali capital, Kathmandu, have slept in the open since Saturday, either because their homes were flattened or because they feared aftershocks would bring them crashing down.

Yesterday, thousands streamed out of the city. Roads leading from Kathmandu were jammed with people, some carrying babies, trying to climb onto buses or hitch rides out. Long queues had formed at the airport.

Officials say close to 4000 people are now known to have been killed, the overwhelming majority in Nepal.

South African International Relations spokesman Clayson Monyela said yesterday that his department believed that all South Africans in Nepal had been accounted for.

"But if people have not heard from their loved ones [they must] let us know," he said.

South Africans are among those who had to be rescued by helicopter from camps on the slopes of Mount Everest following a deadly avalanche.

Saray Khumalo was rescued at Camp1 after trekking from Camp2.

At base camp there were reminders of the deadly event that killed at least 18 people.

"I walked to the makeshift helipad after a cup of overly sweet Sherpa tea. Three frozen corpses bound in sleeping bags and tarps await an airlift," wrote South African guide Sean Wisedale on his blog.

Elizabeth Byrs, a World Food Programme spokesman, said the worst-hit area was an agricultural zone, home to between 2million and 3million people."

The food programme has been operating in Nepal since 1964 and before the quake had been planning to assist about 500000 people who do not have enough to eat.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies appealed for around 33.4-million Swiss francs (about R460-million) to cope with the crisis and help about 75000 people over the next 18 months.

But it said the number of people affected was far higher, with between 4.6million and 6.6million people thought to be living within a 100km radius of the epicentre.