‘Don’t give up on Or,’ pleads family of Israeli missing in Nepal
Government rules out possibility of rescuing any more survivors, says death toll in quake now over 6,800
Family and friends of the last Israeli missing in Nepal insisted they still hoped to find him alive Saturday, a week after a deadly quake hit the Himalayas, and they urged the public not to give up on him either.
“Rescue teams told us about instances in which they rescued people healthy and whole, even after a month,” Or Asraf’s friends told the Walla news site, as hopes of rescuing more survivors from last week’s earthquake dwindled.
“We’re not giving up and we’re asking everyone — from the teams on the ground to the people at home — not to lose hope and not give up on Asraf.”
Nepal’s government on Saturday ruled out the possibility of finding more survivors buried in the rubble from last weekend’s massive earthquake as it announced the death toll had risen to 6,841. Over 14,000 were injured.
“It has already been one week since the disaster,” home ministry spokesman Laxmi Prasad Dhakal said. “We are trying our best in rescue and relief work but now I don’t think that there is any possibility of survivors under the rubble.”
Or Asraf’s father Patrick and two friends on Saturday searched the ruins of a guesthouse he was believed to have visited shortly before the quake but found nothing. Patrick Asraf arrived in Nepal earlier this week to held with the search. Or Asraf was last heard from before last Saturday’s earthquake. He had a satellite phone with him, but did not use it since the quake hit.
Israeli rescue teams were continuing their search for him Saturday, aided by two helicopters
Patrick Asraf said Friday that he was holding onto hope that his son was alive but urged decision makers to boost airborne search and rescue missions to help locate him.
He said he had been updated by Israeli teams in the country on their efforts to locate Or, and noted that the area in which his son might be missing had been considerably narrowed down.
Or Asraf, a veteran of last year’s Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip, was hiking in the Lantang area north of the capital Kathmandu. He had opted to walk ahead of the group he was with, unaccompanied, about an hour before the quake hit.
On Friday, 70 Israeli backpackers stranded in hard-to-reach areas were evacuated to safety by helicopters.
Meanwhile, Israel’s field hospital in Nepal continued operating Saturday, the fourth consecutive day after opening its doors. Medical staff have treated at least 300 patients and delivered at least three babies as of Friday night.
The quake, which was the deadliest in Nepal for more than 80 years, devastated vast swaths of the country when it erupted around midday last Saturday and reduced much of the capital Kathmandu to ruins.
While multiple teams of rescuers from more than 20 countries have been using sniffer dogs and heat-seeking equipment to find survivors in the rubble, no one has been pulled out alive since Thursday evening when an Israeli-led team rescued a woman in her 20s and a US-Nepal team rescued a teenage boy.
More than 100 people were also killed in neighboring India and China.
The Times of Israel Community.