Survivors in Nepal isolated by damage

KATHMANDU, Nepal – Thousands of people fearing aftershocks continued to sleep outdoors as authorities tried to reach survivors of Nepal’s most recent earthquake cut off by blocked roads in isolated villages.

There was a shortage of tarpaulin and tents in the Nepalese capital and elsewhere and people were even using cardboard boxes as their temporary shelter after this Himalayan nation suffered through its second major quake on Tuesday in less than three weeks.

“We have nowhere to go. This is our home for now. We had just moved back into our rented rooms and again the earthquakes are back,” Raj Kumar, a carpenter who was sharing a small tent with two other families, said today.

The magnitude-7.3 earthquake shook the impoverished country Tuesday, killing at least 91 people and injuring more than 2,300, just as it was beginning to rebuild from a devastating April 25 earthquake.

“I just don’t feel safe anymore. I get scared even when cars or trucks drive past us and the ground shakes. We are all terrified. Now I am afraid that we might all get sick staying out in the open space, cramped into these tents and not getting enough water,” Srijana Sharma, a housewife, said in Kathmandu.

The most recent quake hit hardest in deeply rural parts of the Himalayan foothills, hammering many villages reached only by hiking trails and causing road-blocking landslides.

“Damaged houses were further damaged or destroyed. Houses and school buildings spared before were affected … roads were damaged,” said Jamie McGoldrick, a top U.N. official in Nepal.

Among 14 quake-hit districts, some are barely accessible, and a large part of the affected population could not be reached easily because of damaged roads.

Tuesday’s quake also killed 16 people in northern India and one person in Tibet.