- Nepal MP Vidushi Rana thanked India for relief aid and technical support after disaster
- Nepal PM Balen Shah is personally overseeing rescue and relief operations, she said
- Nepal has sought international monetary aid, calling it a moral responsibility
A Nepal MP has thanked India for helping her disaster-hit country with sending tonnes of relief material and providing technical support to search for survivors and rebuild her nation.
Nepal MP Vidushi Rana also told NDTV that Prime Minister Balen Shah is personally supervising rescue and relief work in the Himalayan nation that took the maximum impact of climate change and warming despite contributing very less to global emissions.
"We are grateful for the international support because natural calamities don't see borders. You don't know where it will come next and who will get hit by it," she said. "We add the least to global emissions, yet we were hit very hard."
Rana said that all things considered, her country saw the support that it has been getting from the international community as "heartwarming."
"We have got support from India, our closest neighbour, and they helped us with tonnes of material, relief operations, sent drones and technical support," Rana said.
She said Nepal's prime minister has been monitoring the situation closely.
"His main thing is that no stone should be left unturned for the rescue operation. He has been to the disaster sites. He has already held a lot of meetings with ministers and security officers," Rana told NDTV.
So far, emergency teams have recovered more than 1,100 bodies but nearly 4,500 people still remain missing after the gigantic wave of freezing water, rocks and debris triggered by a high-altitude glacial collapse roared down the Tibet-Nepal border last week.
Nepal has now launched a diplomatic campaign to seek international monetary help, with its Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal saying the post-disaster aid should be treated as a matter of "moral liability" and "not charity."
Rescuers have deployed heavy machinery, helicopters, and excavators to reach survivors and more than 9,200 troops are on the ground to help rescue people, manage bodies and clear blocked roads.
The key focus at present, however, is on tunnels of devastated hydroelectric plants, whose powerhouses have spaces and rooms for people to stay. The authorities are grappling with collapsed debris and floodwater to reach 639 people still believed to be trapped in the ruins of projects, including dozens believed to be in the tunnels.
About 279 people have been rescued from the project sites.
