Nepal closes only international airport

Kathmandu — Despite dire need by millions, earthquake-hit Nepal yesterday was forced to close its only international airport to big airplanes flying in relief supplies and aid workers because the only runway can’t handle the strain of the stream of large aircraft flying in to help.

Medium and small-size jets will still be allowed to land, officials said.

It is only the latest complication in global efforts to aid people suffering in the wake of the April 25, quake, the impoverished country’s biggest and most destructive in eight decades.

People in Nepal — both in remote villages and the capital — have complained about not seeing any rescue workers or international aid and about a lack of temporary shelters, with many sleeping out in the open because of fears of aftershocks bringing down their damaged homes.

Birendra Shrestha, the manager of Tribhuwan International Airport, located on the outskirts of Kathmandu, said bigger planes were banned because the runway was deteriorating. It had been built to handle only medium-size jetliners and not the large military and cargo planes that have been flying to the airport since the magnitude-7.8 earthquake struck, he said.

The last week has seen a steady procession of big jets trying to fly in goods and relief workers, as well as a swarm of journalists, but the small airport has parking slots for only nine jets and only one runway.

There have been reports of cracks on the runway and other problems at the only international airport in Nepal and the only one capable of handling jetliners.

One week after the quake, aid has been slow in reaching those who need it most. In many places, it has not come at all.

UN humanitarian officials said on Saturday that they were increasingly worried about the spread of disease. They said more helicopters were needed to reach isolated mountain villages that were hard to access even before the quake.

The true extent of the damage from the earthquake is still unknown as reports keep filtering in from remote areas, some of which remain entirely cut off. The UN says the quake affected 8.1 million people – more than a quarter of Nepal’s 28 million people.

The government said yesterday that the quake had killed 7,040 people. Laxi Dhakal, a Home Ministry official, said hopes of finding survivors had faded dramatically. “Unless they were caught in an air pocket, there isn’t much possibility,” he said.

Nepal has been shaken by more than 70 aftershocks following the quake and its people remain on edge.

Meanwhile, police have found more than 50 bodies, including those of six foreigners, in Nepal’s popular Langtang trekking region following last weekend’s devastating earthquake, says a senior local official.

Another 100 foreign tourists are still feared to be missing in Langtang in the wake of the 7.8-magnitude-quake.

Uddav Prasad Bhattarai, chief officer of Rasuwa district that forms part of Langtang, said the bodies had been found in different places, including buried under debris in the region hit by a quake-triggered avalanche.

“We’ve pulled out 51 bodies from the Langtang area so far, six of them are tourists. We estimate that about 100 foreigners might still be missing in the area,” Bhattarai said.

“Our priority was to get the survivors out. We rescued over 350 people and about half of them were tourists or guides,” he said in Rasuwa north of Kathmandu.

“We believe we’ve rescued most of the survivors now. We will now bring down the dead bodies.”

The quake wreaked a trail of death and destruction when it erupted around midday eight days ago, reducing much of Kathmandu to rubble.

It also triggered a deadly avalanche on Mount Everest that killed 18 people including foreign climbers.

Tourism department chief Tulsi Gautam said yesterday that so far the bodies of 54 foreigners had been recovered nationwide.

EU diplomats said on Friday that around 1,000 European citizens were still unaccounted for in Nepal, although many of those were thought to be safe but out of contact. — AFP.

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