Israeli NGOs spread to remote villages of Nepal

KATHMANDU, Nepal — The Joint Israelife Disaster Response team, comprising volunteers from Israel’s paramedic organizations ZAKA, United Hatzolah and F.I.R.S.T., visits Kagatiguam as part of an effort to canvas areas farther from Kathmandu to determine the extent of the damage.

“The way Nepal is laid out is with so many villages, and we know these villages are totally demolished,” says Mati Goldstein, the director of ZAKA International and a member of the Isralife Disaster Response Team.

Goldstein, who has volunteered at more than a dozen international disasters, says that the death toll in Nepal is actually a lot lower than it could have been, because Nepal’s earthquake came at 11:56 a.m., when most people were out of their homes.

Haiti’s 2010 quake killed 250,000 people and injured more than a million, because the main earthquake hit at 4:53 a.m., when most people were still asleep in their homes.

Using the coordinates of the earthquake’s epicenter, the Israelife team is trying to determine which villages may have been hard hit but remain as yet unvisited by aid organizations.

They are coordinating their work with the United Nation’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and at the end of the day report things like the number and kinds of injuries, deaths, and the extent of the damage.

— Melanie Lidman