Nepal earthquake: Relief, rescue operations as they happened on Monday

• PM Modi chaired a meeting which took stock of relief work in India and Nepal. The Prime Minister also took stock of the evacuation of stranded people from Nepal both by air and road and provision of relief supplies and material to affected areas.
  

• Nepal earthquake toll has risen to 3218, reports PTI  
• Air services to Kathmandu from India returned to normal. However, but shortage of parking bays at the airport was preventing the carriers to operate more flights to evacuate stranded people.
  

• The United States of America (USA) is sending a total of $10 million in relief to help the victims of the Nepal earthquake, US Secretary of State John Kerry said. He sent his "deepest condolences" to the people of Nepal and said he had been shocked by the "gut-wrenching" images of the death and destruction.
• Fresh tremors felt in Nepal.
• NDRF teams have rescued 11 persons and recovered 62 bodies so far in their Nepal operations: ANI 

• Operation Maitri: Indian Air Force (IAF) has continued to evacuate stranded people from earthquake-hit Nepal- , says Ministry of Defence's update till 6pm. The release reads — 

"Stepping up efforts to help Nepal which was struck by severe earthquakes, The Indian Air Force is providing relief to the people in distress in Nepal. 5 tonnes of milk, light vehicles, RO Plant, Oxygen regenerators, Medicines, Blankets, tents, 14 tonnes of food (ITC Noodles). 03 National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) teams, 02 Field Hospitals, 02 Air Force Communication Centre Vehicles and Medicine are being sent. 

Today, 04 C-17 Globemaster III, 03 C-130J Super Hercules, 03 IL-76 and 02 AN-32 aircraft were pressed into action from morning to night carrying relief material. 

Extensive helicopter operations have also commenced. A total of 87 casualties have been evacuated to a safer places and 3.5 tonnes of relief load have been air dropped in inaccessible places. 

A total of 2305 stranded persons have been evacuated from Kathmandu to India. 

With weather improving in Nepal today, the Indian Air Force(IAF) along with Indian Army today fanned out to remote areas while continuing with transporting essential items from various bases to Kathmandu and evacuating distressed persons to India." 

• The Indian Red Cross was quick to respond with help. Dr SP Agarwal, the Secretary General, Indian Red Cross Society immediately got in touch with the Secretary General, Nepal Red Cross Society and assured him with all possible support. Thereafter he attended a meeting with the Secretary, Health, Government of India.  The Indian Red Cross Society was asked to by the Indian Government to support with a large water purification machine with capacity of delivering 3000 litres of clean drinking water per hour along with trained personnel. It was also asked to support with 100 stretchers which were obtained from the partner organization, St. John Ambulance (India).
• For information on Nepal earthquake, one can contact Ministry of External Affairs, Control Room at controlroom@mea.gov.in
• World Health Organization (WHO) has handed over four emergency health kits comprising medicines and medical supplies and USD 1,75,000 for immediate health needs in Nepal.

• CSSR (Collapsed Structure Search and Rescue) and sniffer dogs are being used: Sandeep Rathore (IG, NDRF)
• Three more NDRF teams have landed today making it 13 teams there, 3 more are to go making it 16: Sandeep Rathore (IG, NDRF)
• We are working on 4 locations, on Nepali army’s direction. Operations are on going: Sandeep Rathore (IG, NDRF)  
• Review meeting under PM Modi for Nepal earthquake underway at 7 RCR: Report 

• Indian Air Force has shifted out MI 17 helicopters from Kathmandu airport to a nearby place to reduce congestion: RK Mathur, Defence Secretary
• PM Modi has assured the Spanish Foreign Minister that India will provide all possible help to Spanish nationals in Nepal.

• Spain has sought India's help in evacuating its nationals from Nepal.

• Air India cancelled its Delhi-Khajuraho flight on Monday and diverted it to Kathmandu to evacuate stranded people in quake-ravaged Nepal.

• Roughly 5400 Indians evacuated so far: Foreign Secretary
• We are getting requests to bring back nationals of other countries & have brought them back in some cases: Foreign Secretary
• 30 foreign nationals brought back from Nepal: Foreign Secretary
• Hope from tomorrow, more share of road movement than air; but primary relief mode will remain by air: Foreign Secretary
• About 100 buses at Samauli, 25 at Mahinder Nagar, 35 at Raxaul: Foreign Secretary
• Congress president Sonia Gandhi writes to Nepal Prime Minister Sushil Koirala; expresses grief over earthquake.

• National disaster helpline number 1078 made operational. People can dial using STD code 011.
• 21 trucks have been sent by the UP government with food, water medicines, and a medical team of 47 people: Foreign Secretary
• Rescued about 337 persons via helicopters: Defence Secretary
• 72 casualties in India so far: Home Secretary
• NDRF team able to save 180 in Darbhanga, Bihar: Home Secretary
• Air Force prepared to work through the night to extend maximum possible help: Defence Secretary

• Big change today from yesterday, more movement on the ground: Foreign Secretary
• Three additional NDRF teams going in today: Foreign Secretary
• Helicopters dropped commodities in Pokhra for first time today: Foreign Secretary
• Around 1600 Indians expected to be brought back today: Foreign Secretary
• Food, medicines taken; milk, food, oxygen regenerators, blankets being moved: Foreign Secretary
• Five military aircraft gone; 4 more to go by end of day: Foreign Secretary 
•  Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan mourns the loss of lives in the earthquakes that have rocked Nepal and India in the last three days.  

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi has donated one month's salary for assistance to those affected by the recent earthquake: PMO

• USGS reports 5.1 intensity earthquake 5km South-West of West Bengal's Mirik.

• Fresh tremors reported from various parts of West Bengal and Bihar.

• As part of Indian Army's 'Operation Maitri' on Monday, the road from Kathmandu to Pokhara has been opened up by Engineer Task Force and satellite communication link between Nepalese Army Head Quarters and Indian Army Engineer Task Force has been established: Ministry of Defence 's 5pm update  
• A movement control team has been setup in Kathmandu to direct relief convoys to affected areas and a multi-national coordination centre has been established at Pokhara.

• As desired by Nepal Army, Two task force head quarters set up -1 in Kathmandu under Major General Sandhu and another in Barpak under Brigadier Gamlin: Sitanshu Kar, spokesperson, MoD
• Private carrier SpiceJet has cut its base fare for evening flights to Kathmandu to Re 1 for two days starting Monday. It will also mount two more special planes to aid evacuation of travellers stranded in earthquake-devastated Nepal.

• Two more ALH Dhruv and two Cheetahs aircrafts are being inducted to Pokhara to expedite rescue efforts.
• The NDRF team has gone all out in its rescue efforts, tweets Vikas Swarup, spokesperson, Ministry of External Affairs

• Total 2246 people have been evacuated so far from Kathmandu.

• Team of health experts from Delhi's AIIMS and Safdarjung Hospital being sent to Nepal to assess situation arising due to mortality.
• The Indian Army has further enhanced its engineering efforts by inducting 40 personnel, five earth moving equipment and some power generators to expedite the rescue operations.
• 'Operation Maitri' task force headquarter has been set up at Kathmandu, tweets Sitanshu Kar, spokesperson, Ministry of Defence.
• There is a need to find donors of prefab toilets to cater for sanitation of all staying in open in Nepal: MoS for external affairs General (retd) VK Singh
• 101 more passengers have been brought back from Kathmandu to Palam on an ​Antonov-32 aircraft.

• Indian Air force's MI-17 have conducted 6 sorties on Monday evacuated 87 casualties and carried relief load of 3.5 tons.  
• Two Indian Army Aviation ALH helicopters have moved to Pokhara to aid in rescue and relief operations, tweets Sitanshu Kar, spokesperson, Ministry of Defence.
• UN`s World Food Programme says it was preparing a large-scale aid operation to earthquake-ravaged Nepal, with a first plane set to arrive on Tuesday.
• Indian carriers continue to face air traffic congestion and parking constraints at Nepal's Tribhuvan International Airport, leading to delayed departures and arrivals.
• The Indian government is pro-actively using Twitter and Facebook to reach out to those affected in quake-ravaged Nepal.
• Reuters quotes a senior Interior Ministry official as saying that authorities have not been able to establish contact with some of the worst affected areas in Nepal, and that the death toll could reach 5,000.
• The famous 5th century Pashupatinath Temple in Nepal has survived the massive 7.9 magnitude earthquake that flattened several World Heritages like iconic Dharhara tower and Darbar Square in Nepal.
• At least 40 Indian mountaineers remained trapped today at Everest Camp I and II, cut off from the Base Camp following avalanches triggered by the massive earthquake on Saturday.
• More than 150 mountaineers are still stranded in two camp sites of Mount Everest following the earthquake in Nepal. The toll in the quake-triggered avalanche on Mount Everest has climbed to 19. The nationalities of all the victims are not yet known. 
• The number of people killed in Nepal by the Himalayan country`s worst earthquake in eight decades has risen to 3,726, a Home Ministry official said.
• Prabhat Singh, a senior official of the Indian High Commission, tells PTI: "M17 Indian choppers have been pressed in to evacuate people from the inner parts of Sindhupal Chowk, Gorkha and Nuwakot districts. Rescue operations in Bhaktapur and Kathmandu are also being carried out by the Indian authorities."
• Chaos prevails at Nepal's the Tribhuvan International Airport with hundreds waiting to be evacuated from the earthquake-ravaged country. 
• C-17 Globemaster III aircraft of IAF returns fails to land in Kathmandu.
• A total of 2,500 Indians have been brought back from earthquake-hit Nepal since Saturday, and more are expected to land this evening, the Defence Ministry said.
• Two Indian mountaineers - Hemant Gupta and Payo Murmu, who were stuck up at 22,000 ft height of the Himalayas on way to the summit on April 25 when the quack struck in Nepal - have safely returned to the base camp.
• Israel begins evacuating infants born to surrogate mothers and their Israeli parents from Nepal.
• Nepalese Home Ministry's national disaster management division said more than 6,830 people were injured. 1,053 people are reported killed in the Kathmandu Valley alone and 875 in Sindhupalchowk, it said.
• In a statement, the Nepalese Police said the death toll has risen to 3,617 people. That does not include those killed in the avalanche on Mount Everest.
• Bhutanese Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay travelled to Kathmandu today to provide assistance to the government of Nepal. He is accompanied by a medical support team. 
• The Asian Development Bank announced on Monday more than USD 200 million in aid for Nepal in response to the earthquake.
• The toll after Saturday's devastating quake in Nepal has climbed to 3,351 and 6,833 people have been injured, the country's Home Ministry said on Monday.
• Telecom companies in India are going all out to help the survivors of the Nepal earthquake to contact their near and dear ones by drastically slashing their call charges.
• At least 150 Indians, who reached Indian border at Raxaul from Nepal this morning, were sent to their homes by different trains and 10 buses were dispatched to Pokhra in the neighbouring country by the Bihar government for transporting back stranded citizens.
• Spokesperson, Indian Ministry of Defence, Sitanshu Kar, tweets one MI-17 helicopter of IAF is shortly taking off from Kathmandu to Pokhara and will operate there.
• Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi thanks "armed forces, NDRF teams, doctors and all those volunteers who are overcoming every obstacle to restore normalcy in Nepal". In a series of tweets, Modi said that while he appreciated those saying "Thank You PM", "real thanks should be to our great culture which teaches us 'Seva Parmo Dharma'.​"

• Tens of thousands of frightened Nepalese huddled in tents desperate for help on Monday as international rescue teams with sniffer dogs raced to find survivors buried in the rubble. Families, the sick and elderly packed into parks and other open spaces in Kathmandu after losing their houses, with others too terrified of aftershocks to return home.
• Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has expressed sadness over the terrible earthquake in Nepal that has left more than 3,200 people dead.

• ​Every step will be taken to help people of Nepal. Their pain is our pain, India's Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu quoted Prime Minister Narendra Modi as saying.
• #IndiaWithNepal 22 tonnes of food packets, 120 large oxygen cylinders moved yesterday. More enroute today morning. pic.twitter.com/X8grPrm8Eo

• Mountain rescue teams, helped by clear weather, used helicopters to airlift climbers stranded for two days at high altitude on Mount Everest after a powerful earthquake triggered an avalanche that killed at least 17 people.

• India shares cultural relations with neighbouring country Nepal, so making all possible efforts, assures India's Home Minister Rajnath Singh.
• India is readying six more National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams to deploy in Nepal in addition to 10 currently operating under `Operation Maitri`.
• DG of Meteorological Department, LS Rathore, tells ANI that aftershocks are still occurring, but their intensity and magnitude are diminishing. Saying that 55 aftershocks have been observed till now, Rathore said an aftershock of magnitude 5.3 occurred at 9:56 pm on Sunday. Aftershocks that took place yesterday were between magnitude 4-5, today they are between 3-4, suggesting declining trend in intensity, added Rathore.
• Over 300 Australians are still missing following the tremors that devastated Nepal, authorities said on Monday.
• Nearly a million children have been "severely affected" by a severe earthquake in Nepal that has killed more than 3,200 people, a spokesman for the United Nations Children`s Fund (UNICEF) said.
• The Indian Air Force flew 12 sorties to bring back Indian nationals, including many children.
• Stepping up its relief and rescue efforts, India has evacuated 1,935 stranded Indians from earthquake-hit Nepal.
• Fresh feeble tremor jolted Nepal on Monday morning.
• An inter-ministerial team in India, headed by Additional Secretary in MHA BK Prasad, leaves for Nepal to coordinate rescue and relief operations. 

• The European Commission released EUR 3 million (USD 3.25 million) in emergency aid for Nepal which will help fund clean water, medicine, emergency shelter and telecommunications in the worst-affected areas. 

• The toll is likely to climb as rescuers struggle to reach remote regions in Nepal as bodies buried under rubble are recovered.
• "The death toll has reached 3,218 and over 6,500 are injured," said Rameshwor Dangal, who heads the Home Ministry`s national disaster management division.
• Officials say more than 3,300 people are now known to have died, including 3,218 in Nepal -- making it the quake-prone Himalayan nation`s deadliest disaster in more than 80 years.

Earlier development:

International rescue teams and relief supplies begin arriving in Nepal`s devastated capital on Monday to help terrified and homeless survivors of a quake that has killed more than 3,200 people in the impoverished nation.

Equipped with heavy cutting gear and accompanied by sniffer dogs, rescue teams were landing round-the-clock at the country`s only international airport on the outskirts of Kathmandu, the normally vibrant capital which has been devastated by Saturday`s 7.8 magnitude quake.

Around 90 people have been killed in neighbouring countries, including at least 67 in India and 20 in China.

The earthquake also triggered an avalanche on Mount Everest which buried part of base camp and killed at least 18 people.

Aftershocks triggered fresh avalanches there on Sunday even as helicopters evacuated some of those worst injured the day before.

Hundreds of foreign mountaineers had gathered at the world`s highest mountain at the start of the annual climbing season, and the real scale of the disaster there has been impossible to evaluate with communications all but cut off.With much of Kathmandu lying in ruins, tens of thousands of residents spent the night slept out on the streets, in makeshift tents fashioned from plastic sheeting that did little to protect them from heavy overnight rains.

With the ground still regular shaking from nerve-shredding aftershocks, many endured a sleepless and miserable night.

"We don`t have a choice, our house is shaky. The rain is seeping in but what can we do?," said 34-year-old shopkeeper Rabi Shrestha as he camped out on the roadside.

"I don`t know why the gods want us to suffer like this."

The situation has been exacerbated by power cuts and the country`s cell phone network is at breaking point.

The Nepalese government said it was stepping up efforts to help remote areas closer to the epicentre of the quake.

"Our focus is on rescue," Home Ministry spokesman Laxmi Prasad Dhakal told a news agency. "In far-flung areas, a larger helicopter will be stationed in the regional headquarters and smaller ones will shuttle with survivors."

Announcing the latest death toll in Nepal, a top disaster official said that emergency crews would also step up their efforts to rescue those trapped in high-rise buildings which pancaked on Saturday.

"Our efforts today will also be focused on finding survivors in areas where big buildings have collapsed," Rameshwor Dangal, who heads the home ministry`s national disaster management division, told a news agency.

The historic nine-storey Dharahara tower, a major tourist attraction, was among the buildings brought down in Kathmandu on Saturday.

Police said around 150 people were thought to have been in the tower at the time of the disaster, based on ticket sales.

"At least 30 dead bodies have been pulled out. We don`t have a number on the rescued but over 20 injured were helped out," local police official Bishwa Raj Pokharel told AFP.

"We haven`t finished our work there, rescue work is still continuing. Right now, we are not in a position to estimate how many might be trapped."

The Nepalese rescuers were being joined by hundreds of foreign aid workers from countries such as China, India and the United States.

Around 70 US aid workers, along with rescue dogs, headed to Nepal aboard a military transport plane which flew from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

India, meanwhile, flew in 13 military transport planes loaded with tonnes of food, blankets and other aid.

Hospitals have been overwhelmed by the disaster, with morgues overflowing and medics having to work through the night to cope with an endless stream of victims suffering trauma or multiple fractures.

Some surgeons have been operating from makeshift theatres set up in parking lots with the aftershocks making patients too scared to stay inside.

At the city`s oldest Bir Hospital, around a dozen dead bodies had to be placed on the floor, while stricken relatives stood vigil, trying to swat away the flies.

Nepal and the rest of the Himalayas, where the Indian and Eurasia tectonic plates collide, are particularly prone to earthquakes.

An 6.8 magnitude quake hit eastern Nepal in August 1988 killing 721 people, and a magnitude 8.1 quake killed 10,700 people in Nepal and India in 1934.

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