Father of Israeli missing in Nepal pleads for greater search effort

The father of Or Asraf, the last Israeli unaccounted for in Nepal following Saturday’s devastating earthquake, said Friday night 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.

There is a need “to increase the number of helicopters, to increase the number of rounds made by each helicopter,” Patrick Asraf told Channel 2 news.

Patrick, in Nepal to assist efforts to find his son, 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 had been considerably narrowed down.

“I continue to hold on to cautious optimism,” he told Channel 2. “As long as it’s not proven otherwise, the kid is healthy and alive, and that’s why it’s so important to get to (him) and rescue him.

“Helicopters are the name of the game,” he added.

Or’s sister Ella told Channel 2 that “everyone is working hard and we know they won’t leave before they find Or.”

She noted that her brother could be trapped somewhere without food or water. “In the past few days Or’s life has (increasingly) been in danger with each passing day. We hope he comes home soon. Every day (that passes) is nerve-wracking.”

Asraf, a veteran of last year’s Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip, has not been heard from since Saturday’s 7.8-magnitude earthquake which killed more than 6,200 people. Asraf, hiking in the Lantang area north of the capital Kathmandu, opted to walk ahead of the group he was with, unaccompanied, about an hour before the quake hit.

Hilik Magnus, the head of Magnus International Search and Rescue, said that one of his team leaders in Nepal, Amit Rubin, is heading a rescue operation to find Asraf.

The team believes, based on Asraf’s itinerary and the time of the earthquake, that he is within a four-kilometer range of Bamboo, a village in the Langtang Valley at approximately 2,000 meters elevation.

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The problem with the area, Magnus said, is that the earthquake triggered massive landslides, obliterating the trail and making it exceptionally difficult to navigate across the steep slopes.

Asraf carried an SOS satellite device capable of emitting a traceable signal but has not turned it on, Magnus said.

On Friday 70 Israeli backpackers stranded in hard-to-reach areas were evacuated to safety by helicopters.

Meanwhile the Israeli field hospital in Nepal has treated over 300 patients since opening its doors Wednesday morning, with medical staff performing several complicated surgeries on victims of the quake and delivering three babies so far.

Israeli medical staff were also assisting in local Nepalese hospitals, primarily in surgical departments, the Foreign Ministry said.

Over 250 doctors and rescue personnel were part of an IDF delegation that arrived Tuesday in the Nepalese capital.

The Israeli group — the second largest in manpower of any international aid team after India — set up the field hospital with 60 beds, including an obstetrics department, and was operating in coordination with the local army hospital.

In Israel on Friday, 150 Nepalese agriculture students at Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee held a ceremony to commemorate their countrymen and women who died in the earthquake, Israel Radio reported. The ceremony was attended by the Nepalese ambassador to Israel and college staff. Several of the students have not yet been able to make contact with their families in Nepal since the natural disaster hit, according to the report.

The National Emergency Operations Center said Friday the death toll has risen to 6,259. A further 13,932 people were injured in Saturday’s quake, added the center. More than 100 people in neighboring India and China also died in the quake, officials said.

Nepal’s government announced Friday that it will be giving out 100,000 rupees ($1,000) to families of each of those killed in Saturday’s earthquake, and another 40,000 rupees ($400) for funeral costs.

Nearly a week after the massive earthquake, Nepal still urgently needs basic aid like shelter and food, while remote villages remain cut off from help.

Aid workers still face “immense logistical challenges,” UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said Friday, noting that the scale of the devastation in Nepal would be an obstacle for any government.

The UN has estimated the magnitude-7.8 quake affected 8.1 million people — more than a fourth of Nepal’s population of 27.8 million.

In Kathmandu, rescue workers in orange jumpsuits continued to search through collapsed buildings, but fewer tents were standing in a central part of the capital that had been packed with people in the first few days. Some residents who had been fearful of aftershocks have left the city or moved elsewhere.

More than 130,000 houses were destroyed in the quake, according to the UN humanitarian office. Near the epicenter, north of Kathmandu, whole villages were in ruins, and residents were in desperate need of temporary shelters against the rain and cold.

Isolated hamlets are still cut off because scarce helicopters can’t land in some mountainous areas, and roads have often been destroyed, said Amos, who flew over some of those places during a three-day visit.

“Of course we are worried that it is taking so long to get to people who desperately need aid. Some of those villages are virtually flattened. But it’s very, very hard to see how we’re going to get to them,” she said.

Some villagers might be able to walk to a place where the aid helicopters could land, but that would be of little help to those who are injured, she added.

Tents and tarpaulins are the most urgent need, but there’s also a demand for water, food, health care and better sanitation. Debris must be removed, bodies recovered, and officials need to determine which buildings are too dangerous to enter, Amos said.

In the past 48 hours, the UN Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, has delivered nearly 30 metric tons of supplies, including tents, water purification tablets and first aid and hygiene kits.

Nepal Information Minister Minedra Risal said 400,000 tents are needed immediately, but that the country has only been able to provide 29,000 thus far.

In addition to tents and tarpaulins, the government appealed to international donors to send foodstuffs like grain, salt and sugar.

It also asked donors to give money for relief efforts if they cannot send goods that are immediately needed in the impoverished Himalayan nation.

A European Union official said about 1,000 people from Europe still were unaccounted for and had not contacted their embassies since the quake struck.

EU Ambassador to Nepal Rensje Teerink said that “doesn’t mean they are dead. It just means they haven’t reported back.” Most were tourists and trekkers, and many did not register with their embassies.

While the UN humanitarian office said about 24,000 people are living in 13 camps in Kathmandu, a sense emerged that life was starting to return to normal in the capital in some semblance.

Only a few dozen tents remained at the Tudikhel grounds in the heart of the city, with less than 1,000 people still there. Earlier in the week, the area had been crowded with more than 30,000 people.

Almost all the city’s gas stations were open Friday, and they had no lines. A popular suburban bakery even was selling fresh bread and croissants.

AFP contributed to this report.