DOHA: Qatar Red Crescent (QRC) has launched a drive locally to collect QR12m ($3.3m) in donations for relief and rescue work in quake-ravaged Nepal.
The drive will be on for three months, during which time the first phase of relief and rescue work by QRC will continue in the Himalayan nation.
A QRC team reached Nepal with tons of medicines and a mobile hospital within 48 hours of the disaster.
The QRC is operating a field hospital in Nuwakot district there and has installed a water purification and distribution system for 5,000 families in Bhaktapur district. Both are areas severely affected by the earthquake.
Saleh bin Ali Al Mohannadi, secretary-general of QRC, told reporters here yesterday that more QRC teams will be heading for Nepal soon.
He said QRC’s relief and rescue work in Nepal will continue for three months, after which rebuilding and rehabilitation initiatives will begin.
He said QRC rushed a team with the mobile hospital and water purification system to Nepal after making a quick assessment of the requirements in the quake-affected areas.
According to Al Mohannadi, QR1m was sent to Nepal for immediate relief works.
“There are 400,000 Nepalese in Qatar. We must stand with them in this hour of crisis and need,” he added.
Al Mohannadi said an initiative to provide psychological support to grieving Nepalese here was also in place.
Mani Ratan Sharma, Deputy Head of Mission, Nepal Embassy, was present along with several community elders and officials of the Nepalese community organisation, Non-Resident Nepali Association (NRNA).
The situation in Nepal was very bad and aftershocks were still being felt, Sharma said. All schools, colleges and government offices are closed for a week.
There are 12 affected areas and some 6,000 people were missing, he said, adding that thousands of houses and major infrastructure had been destroyed by the quake.
Many villages had vanished from the face of the earth. There was no electricity or water supply in many places and hospitals were overcrowded with the injured.
There was an acute shortage of medicines, and drinking water, medicines, health services and food were urgently needed, said Sharma.
The most challenging task was to access remote areas, some of them atop high mountains.
Community elder Dr Dev Dongol said that 80 percent of the estimated 400,000 Nepalese in Qatar were engaged in the construction sector.
THE PENINSULA
