My prayers and best wishes

to all persons in the area impacted by the Nepal earthquake.
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Comments (22)

I second youfrustrated hug
Ken.
Amen! I Also....sad flower
Do we have blog-friends in Nepal? Please let us know you're okay ... hole
They need prayers badly...terrible thing! Hoping they will get physical help with whatever needs they have inc medical supplies!
My prayers too.. sad flower
So far the most up to date information seems to be on this website.

thanks Ken, excellent web site.....some of pics and tweets just amaze me...
I am pleased to report that after 10+ anxious hours my friend has managed to reach her family in Kathmandu and they are well and uninjured. Their house is cracked but still standing which is better than some of their neighbors homes. There have been many aftershocks, so they are spending the night with thousands of others outside. Near the river, they are a little cold (it's about 10C outside there), but they have food, plenty of lumber laying around for a fire and some food and warm clothes my friend's brother ran inside the house and got. So for right now at least all is well for that family.

There exists of course an immediate need for about 100,000 cold weather tents in Nepal. Said need will probably not be filled before the crisis period is over.

The first military C-130s carrying aid have begun to arrive at Kathmandu.
At 07:18 UTC an aftershock of 6.7 magnitude struck East (this time) of Kathmandu.

At this time is believed towns and villages in this new area which were not damaged in the prior incident may have significant damage now and their own new casualties.

Ken. My heart and thoughts and best wishes goes to all. It is absolutely terrible.
My deepest condolence for Nepal people sad flower
I think clean water is going to be a real concern there by the end of the week.
The army will most pobably drp off everthing they need soon.
Not very likely, with only 5 working helicopters today and fewer than 200 vehicles, but no open roads.., question for you becomes how?
ken
Truly a tragedy...many Canadians are there in Nepal...no word about anyone of them so far...I do hope they have more help on the way...
True LouLou. The communication with the outside world from that country seems to mostly be via Twitter and Facebook. It seems that initially after the Maoists came to power they banned HAM radio and confiscated those they could find. A few years ago they reversed direction and began allowing HAMs again, but there are only a handful in country. Their licensing procedures allow holders of licenses from other countries to work two bands in Nepal, but most choose short range bands suitable for vehicle and hand held radios.

There is one HAM net running around 14Mhz trying to coordinate rescue agency movements, another running on 25 watts of solar power is attempting to relay messages for the National Police from inside Kathmandu. Nepal's Amateur radio repeater was in Kathmandu and runs on 145 Mhz and 434.5 Mhz. Since those are mobile frequencies the range is short and probably not heard outside of Nepal by normal receivers. Nepali HAM licenses are prefaced with 9N1, but there is a definite lack of HF traffic coming out of that country today.
If I was young enough to be seeking a role model, CNN's Dr. Sonjay Gupta would be near the top of my list. He is on the ground in Nepal as a Doctor and surgeon today.
Update 23:05 UTC : US Marines begin Aid operation in Nepal with the Osprey helicopters. The U.S. military made its first surveillance flight in Nepal Monday, a week after the country was hit by a devastating earthquake that’s killed more than 7,300 people.

Four tilt-rotor Osprey aircraft that can land in tight spaces flew over the disaster zones. U.S. Marine Brigadier General Paul Kennedy told CBS news he could see landslides during his flyover.
“It’s just wiping out the roads,” said Kennedy. "They’re going to have to rely immediately upon an airlift to help these folks out and then you’re going to have to start from the valley and dig your way all the way up to those villages."


Kennedy and USAID’s Bill Berger had been asked by Nepal’s government to assess the region near the Chinese border.

"We saw a great deal of devastation," said Berger after the flight. "Even the equipment to clear the roads we saw was stranded in many places along the road."

Picture of the V-22 Osprey arriving in Kathmandu this weekend.

Embedded image from another site
Biggest problem I see with the V22s is while it looks good they are there, their normal operations altitude is 10,000 feet and less. Some of the mountains they will deal with are over 20,000 feet, with Mt. Everest closer to 30,000 feet. The aircraft is not pressurized and oxygen is needed above 14,000 feet and the maximum altitude is about 18,000 feet and the crew should have been on oxygen before taking off for such flights. Not designed for pressurized high altitude flight the Osprey does not normally carry much Oxygen. Also there is a hypothermia issue as the heater is designed to not heat the interior to much more than 10 degrees Fahrenheit over outside air temperatures. At 14,000 feet the outside air temperature is 9 degrees (F). At 16,000 feet, just under 2 degrees (F). Source:

So the question becomes, what altitude are the villages needing aid at?
A lot of the Americans I talk with around here are IMO over focused on the Capital City of Kathmandu. I blame the American Media which is having too much fun quoting Hillary or staking out Baltimore to cover News elsewhere. The result is in America the devastation in the highland villages is fairly unknown, although other countries do cover it.

This is the mountain village of Langtang the day before the earthquake.

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This is the same village the day after the earthquake.

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A total of 4 persons survived. Ir was earthquake, followed by a pressure wave of air, followed by avalanche to bury what was left. Only 1 building sheltered in rock cleft still stood afterwards. All 4 survivors happened to be inside that building. All Nepalis and tourists in other buildings and places in that village died.

This French news team visited the village. This video released today may be too strong for some folk. An effort is underway to dig out and identify the corpses.



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