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Darwin man recognises relative pulled from rubble

ABC

ABC

In a video posted on social media Darwin man Fursangbu Sherpa recognised his brother-in-law being pulled from the rubble in Kathmandu.

“I called my family. But they didn’t tell me the truth,” he said.

“Later one of my family members called me and told me he passed away in hospital because there weren’t enough doctors or nurses to look after all the patients.”

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Hospitals in Nepal are struggling to treat thousands of injured earthquake survivors, as the country’s national disaster management chief raised the official death toll to 3,218 on Monday.

Aftershocks continue to jolt Kathmandu and surrounding areas in the wake of Saturday’s magnitude-7.8 earthquake.

It emerged Mr Sherpa’s brother-in-law was trapped in the house for eight gruelling hours before he was dragged from the collapsed building early on Sunday morning.

Mr Sherpa said his brother-in-law was still alive when he was pulled out.

“He was okay, he was still talking after the rescue.

“He was saying to my sister, ‘I’m going to die so you guys have to stay strong’.

“My sister was telling him, ‘No it’s okay, because you’ve been rescued and we have doctors and you’re in hospital’.”

Mr Sherpa said he felt the strong sense of helplessness and guilt that many in Darwin’s Nepalese community were also dealing with.

“It’s like a dream for me,” Mr Sherpa said.

“I feel very disappointed. Sometimes I think, if I was there maybe I could do something.”

‘We need clothes, we need blankets’

The Northern Territory’s Nepalese community has been hit hard by the disaster, and many have relatives who have been affected.

Nitesh Pant from the Nepalese Association of the Northern Territory is organising a funding drive, and is calling for supplies, as well as volunteers.

“We need clothes, we need blankets, deli utensils, medicines,” he said.

The association was calling for volunteer medical workers to help in earthquake relief efforts and were working with the national association to send Australian doctors and nurses to Nepal.

“We immediately need health peoples,” Mr Pant said.

“Hospitals are packed out. People are giving treatment outside on the roads. It’s a chaotic scenario”

They were also talking with Malaysia Airlines and Silk Air to help them out with subsiding flights for medical volunteers.

-ABC

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