Nepal earthquake: Recovery chaotic, no direction or authority says journalist

Updated April 29, 2015 15:12:26

There is widespread frustration in the Kathmandu community due to a of lack direction and administration from the Nepal government says an ABC reporter who is there.

Saturday's earthquake has resulted in a massive cleanup and rescue task for a country nowhere near sufficiently equipped to deal with it.

ABC Canberra's Siobhan Heanue said law and order and the general morale in Kathmandu was stable purely because of the compassion and attitude of the Nepalese people.

Ms Heanue, who was in Kathmandu when the earthquake struck four days ago, has been reporting on the situation since.

Chaos is beginning to envelope the city, and Nepal is known for its ineffective government at the best of times.

Siobhan Heanue, ABC Canberra reporter

"Last night a few people returned to their homes, but so many people have lost their houses and places of work," she said.


"It's one of the most impoverished nations in Asia and there seems to be a complete lack of direction and authority."

She said there is no strategic direction for the recovery effort and most are still without power.

Hope has arrived in the form of international aid with 1,500 aid agencies now represented in Kathmandu.

"Yesterday the streets started to hum with some activity, but there's only so long a nation can go without communications, power and reduced food before things start to get a little more tenuous in terms of security," Ms Heanue said.

"It's a scene of complete devastation, and it's not that the city has been razed, but the destruction is so widespread and significant that the whole city is in a state of shock.

"There's intense fear as the aftershocks have continued one after the other."

Burning bodies from dawn to dusk

One of the local traditions is to cremate a dead body a day after death in an open air ceremony along the river.

Due to the large number of dead bodies, this process of cremation has become part of the chaos.

"On banks of the river, bodies are put on concrete platforms and people watch as families gather around," Ms Heaunue said.

"It's an interesting, ritualised way of farewelling the departed, but this time they're burning so many bodies all at once, they're running out of space to do it.

"From first light to last light, bodies are brought in and then the ashes are scattered into the river."

The death toll has now risen above 4,600.

Living in Kathmandu now

Ms Heanue said she is one of the lucky ones with access to a hotel that is still standing, but the first three nights she slept outside in the cold and rain.

At one point she had to shelter from an aftershock out the back of a cafe under a table with fellow locals and tourists.

"Every time someone rolls a suitcase on wheels [in the hotel lobby] I jump out of my chair - it keeps you on edge," she said.

Information on donating to the Nepal earthquake relief can be found at ABC Appeals.

Topics: earthquake, disasters-and-accidents, relief-and-aid-organisations, nepal, canberra-2600

First posted April 29, 2015 14:24:19