On the 25th of April, 2015, catastrophe struck Nepal in the form of a 7.8 magnitude earthquake which claimed over 7,000 lives. Roads became dysfunctional, mobile networks jammed, marketplaces got shut, and in the vacuum created by shock and grief, the media rushed in.
When I landed in Kathmandu, on the 1st of May, shops were re-opening and taxi-prices reducing. The extra food I’d carried quickly seemed superfluous, given my hotel near the Pasupati temple had no shortage of food, electricity or water—comforts I wasn’t prepared for mentally by television reports.
Over the course of my stay, I visited Kathmandu, its outskirts and some distant mountain villages of districts Sindhupalchowk and Gorkha. The scale of sorrow was piercing—many had lost family members, yet more had lost homes. All had lost the ability to get a single night of peaceful sleep undisturbed by aftershocks, real or imagined.
What moved me most…
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