In this blog Mashfee recalls her experience of the Earthquake that struck Nepal on 25 April, 2015.
Recently people living in Dhaka have been feeling minor earthquakes – light tremors, swaying, and some light cracks in buildings. Sometimes, I feel these earthquakes measuring Richter scale 4-5; but most often I do not. But every time someone mentions earthquakes, my thoughts return to that terrible day: 25 April 2015. The day the earth shook and kept on shaking.
I had been living in Nepal at that time, almost two years into my assignment there as the Ambassador of Bangladesh. We had off-and-on felt earthquakes in these two years, some bigger, mostly minor, gone after rattling the doors and glasses for a few seconds. We got accustomed to these minor quakes, thinking that all earthquakes would be like this, minor shivers, shakes, slight tremors, rumblings, and nothing more.
On 25 April 2015, all of us were together, which was somewhat remarkable for a family that had gotten used to living in three different countries, my son Tanmoy in UK, my husband Minhas in Dhaka, and me in Kathmandu with Abba.
On this fateful day, Minhas and I had returned home at around 11.00 am after attending a commemoration ceremony at the Australian Embassy on the occasion of ANZAC Day (it commemorates the Battle of Gallipoli when the Australian and New Zealand forces, as part of the Allied powers launched an attack at Gallipoli on the Ottoman Empire during the First World War). It was a Saturday, a weekend and everyone was relaxed. All of a sudden, at around 11.50 am, the earth began to shake – it was a violent shaking, almost as if the whole world was turning upside down: accompanied by a roar no previous experience of minor earthquakes could prepare anyone for. It seemed to be going on forever, until it settled down and we thought it was over.. Luckily, Abba was sitting outside on the terrace with me, otherwise we would never have been able to take him outside as he was partially immobile from the Alzheimer’s that was destroying his brain. The first violent shaking, accompanied by a low rumbling growl went on for a few minutes; it was followed by an absolute silence like an ominous calm before a storm breaks – this silence lasted for a few seconds and then something out of hell broke loose. Everything shook, turned upside down, and just when we felt that we could not absorb any more of the nightmare, things finally quiten down. This second phase lasted almost two to three minutes, though to us it felt like it was forever. This earthquake was something that we could never have imagined – we learnt later it was magnitude 8.1 in the Richter scale with the epicenter was in the Gorkha District, about 85 km northwest of Central Kathmandu; it was later named the Great Gorkha Earthquake. When it subsided, we all sat in stunned silence, waiting for our brains to catch up with what had just happened. We thought that everything had calmed down, but soon violent aftershocks continued to shake the earth, each lasting minutes and in the magnitude of 6-plus, which was in fact more terrifying than the initial violent tremor. We quickly realized that this was a major disaster, and that we would need to take special measures (it was in fact the biggest earthquake to hit Nepal since 1934). I began calling my colleagues to check on them and take stock of the situation. Minhas suggested that everyone should convene at the Embassy for emergency planning.
One of the first calls I received was from my Foreign Secretary, who wanted to know if everyone was alright, and then asked if Bangladesh should prepare to send emergency assistance to Nepal (it was then that I realized that the earthquake had been felt all the way to Bangladesh). Even though I had virtually no idea about the extent of the damage, some instinct told me that this was a massive disaster, and I told him without hesitation that we needed to be prepared to send emergency assistance as soon as possible. Then we went inside to take stock of the damage to the house, and found that while there was no visible structural damage, most of the contents of our wardrobes and cabinets had spilled out and were lying on the floor. We got ready to go to the Embassy to facilitate reaching out to those who would need help, because I was already receiving calls from anxious family members of tourists visiting Nepal, trying to find out if their relatives were alright since they could not communicate with them. Minhas and I got ready to go to the Embassy, which luckily was very close to the residence. We made sure that Abba was safe, and took Tanmoy with us. By this time, two staff members of the Embassy had arrived with their families to my residence, panicked, looking towards me as a guardian to give them assurance. I told my cook Selim to give them lunch, since I guessed that none of them had eaten though it was almost 4.00 pm by then.
When we stepped on the ground, we felt that we were standing on something semi-solid, like the earth was shivering with small tremors, non-stop, one of the most unsettling experiences of my life.
At the Embassy, as instructed, most of the officers and staff members had already gathered, all with their families. We quickly set up a hotline – for some reason, (we learnt later that most of the telecom towers had collapsed), only Ambassador’s phone had international connection, so we used that to establish a hotline and it was communicated to MOFA. We started taking stock of Bangladesh expatriates who were in Nepal, and one by one, got in touch with all. Thankfully all were safe, with minor injuries. Some of them came to the Embassy seeking shelter and seeking the psychological security of suffering collectively. We realized the need that we would have to feed a large number of people, for the night I asked my cook to arrange a simple dinner – the poor man somehow managed to organize something for about 50 people. By now, news was trickling in from the rest of the country confirming the magnitude of the disaster. I quickly confirmed with my Foreign Secretary that we would indeed need to send a major assistance package; he informed me that Dhaka was working on sending a medical team from the Armed Forces. Throughout this the aftershocks continued, every few half hour, or hour, a large tremor shook the earth, magnifying the fear and trauma everyone was feeling. We quickly arranged temporary shelter, within the Embassy premises, pooling together resources like tarpaulin, blankets, pillows, bed sheets, cushions, anything at hand to create a makeshift shelter for the people gathered at the Embassy.
I returned home at around 9.00 pm and found Abba lying on a sofa on the porch, covered with quilts. Thankfully, my cook Selim (who passed away last September after working with me for 15 years) and Abba’s caregiver Rob, had the good sense to bring him down stairs, and provide him with the most secure arrangement possible. My poor father was disorganized, but he still asked if we were alright. It started to rain lightly, turning the cool weather chilly. We could not sleep indoors because of the aftershocks and decided to sleep in the car (a Toyota LandCruiser Prado) and pass the night, expecting the aftershocks to die down in the morning. Unfortunately they continued for months, though gradually losing their intensity and we moved back inside after ten days.
Thus began one of my most challenging periods in Nepal.