Nepal Earthquake: Hard-Hit Rural Towns Feel Alone, Residents Say
Homes, some over 100 years old, lay in ruin.
SANKHU, Nepal -- Block after block of beautiful old homes, some over 100 years old, now lay in ruin. Around 100 residents died in Saturday’s 7.8 magnitude earthquake and rescuers have all but given up hope of finding anyone else alive under the piles of rubble.
Families pick through the remains of their homes salvaging what they can, tossing aside intact bricks that could be used to rebuild.
“Nobody is helping us,” 30 year-old accountant Jayaram Shrestha told ABC News, as he tried to pull his motorcycle out from under his leveled house. "Everything is destroyed.”
Two soldiers walked through the debris-lined streets with a bullhorn, announcing to residents -- many of whom are now camped out in tents -- that a clinic has been set up if they need medical attention.
Another unit of soldiers dug slowly in an alleyway, looking for bodies. A seven-person French rescue team walked through that area with their search dog, a Belgian Malinois named Arko, but said there were no buried survivors left.
One man asked the French rescuers to use Arko to locate his niece’s body in the alleyway, but the rescuer explained that the rubble was too dense and that Arko wouldn’t be able to locate a scent.
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