The pain was palpable, also Nepal's helplessness in times of disaster

The sense of panic and chaos in Kathmandu was palpable to the dna team while we were circling over Nepal's capital looking to land at Tribhuvan International Airport on April 26, a day after the 7.9-magnitude earthquake struck the Himalayan nation. While our flight from Delhi was looking to land, a 6.7-magnitude aftershock made Kathmandu's Air Traffic Control (ATC) personnel abandon their building. Left with little option we flew back to Delhi. The aircraft refueled at Delhi and again set towards Nepal's capital. This time a violent weather system over Kathmandu made our aircraft circle for over an hour before we finally touched down at the tarmac on a rain-drenched night.

Stepping outside in the persistent rain, I saw scores of people lined up to get to their homes. People were standing in queues in the rain waiting for the ticket counters to open and take the next flight out of Kathmandu.

Trolleys outside the airport had been converted into temporary beds. Women, many with babies in hand, old and young didn't mind being out in the rain while they waited for their turn to get to their loved ones across Nepal.
It was barely 9 pm and the streets of Kathmandu were deserted. People were sleeping under shops and on pavements in fear of being trapped under their damaged houses if another aftershock struck. ATM machines had been knocked out of service. No shop sold bottled water. Hotels were closing doors even on those who had advance reservations. Many said their staff had run away. Most of them, in fact, had given rooms to desperate people, mostly tourists, who paid exorbitant premiums to bag comfort in Nepal's capital city that had been paralysed by one of the worst natural disasters to strike in decades.

Early next morning, Kathmandu burst to life and the morning light illuminated the fear and chaos invisible at night. The golf course on the way to the airport looked like a refugee camp, people having pitched their tents to avoid sleeping inside their brick houses. Lines of worried people were still queuing up at the Kathmandu airport for a way out of the capital city.

We boarded our flight to Lukla, considered the gateway to the Everest region. Our objective ever since we left Delhi was singular: get to Lukla first and fast. We had heard of an avalanche at the Everest base camp. Getting to Lukla was the only way we could find out the extent of the damage in the Everest region. Aboard the 40-minute flight on a privately-owned single engined turbo propeller plane were American and European tourists, oblivious of the tragedy that had struck two nights before. All of them with guides who would take them on the Everest trail.

The airstrip at Lukla unfolds like an oasis in the Everest region after flying through the clouds and the mountains. Considered to be the most dangerous airstrip in the world, Lukla surely looked like a promising gateway to a region which has become a favourite haunt for all those who wish to be remembered in the annals of Everest's history as its conquerors.

Lukla is a small town where numerous small hotels and lodges have sprung up around the airstrip and the helipad. There is no motorable road anywhere in this region. Cars and bikes are unheard of. The only way to go higher is by employing the local Sherpas as porters and guides. Lukla itself went unscathed in the earthquake. There were several mild aftershocks during the day, but there were no signs of devastation in the town. It was the helipad where tales of death and destruction were pouring in from the Everest base camp.

When I reached the helipad at Lukla, there were four bodies wrapped in waterproof cloth lying on the ground. The weather was good and private rescue choppers were ceaselessly flying out of Lukla to the Everest base camp and coming back with people – alive and dead. Some were injured, others had walked down to other small towns to safety. From the tales of survival, death and destruction, the Everest base camp looked like a place that had borne the brunt of the avalanche.

For the next two days, the weather took a turn for the worse in Lukla. Clouds enveloped the airstrip and the surrounding mountains. Rain further shortened the flying window of rescue choppers. Whenever a chopper landed, a dead body would be flown in. Many of the dead were known to fellow climbers only by their first name. Some people recount walking for many hours down from the Everest base camp. On the way they described seeing villages flattened and houses destroyed. Unlike Kathmandu, the Sherpa folk in the Everest region managed to save themselves from being trapped in their damaged or collapsed houses.

Lukla was brimming over with rescued tourists and Western climbers desperate to get back to their respective countries and towns. Anger was palpable on the streets of Lukla. The bad weather had created a huge backlog of flights. Lukla was connected to the rest of the world only by air. People had been waiting for days to fly out and now could do nothing more but wait. The instructions by the embassies of different countries to their nationals were distinct. The Chileans had asked their nationals to "make it to Kathmandu somehow". The Australians had flown in an official to Lukla to do a headcount of their nationals before they could be picked. The Americans, quite surprisingly, hadn't till then communicated with any of their countrymen. The British embassy meanwhile had issued the following instructions to their beer guzzling nationals: "Keep calm; and follow the instructions."

Even if they had not, this was the joke of the town in Lukla.

The Indian Air Force came in thrice to Lukla and evacuated many people desperate to get out of the Everest region. After five days at Lukla, we managed to board an IAF chopper and were dropped off at Kathmandu by the airmen. At the Kathmandu airport, an intense stench of decomposing bodies permeated the air. People were wearing face masks to escape the smell, but the stench was too distinct and strong to miss.

The city looked no better than it had on the first rain-drenched night that we had arrived. Over a dozen nations had set up medical counters for their respective citizens. Many Nepalis I spoke to were unsparing in their criticism of government's efforts in dealing with the tragedy. Before aid from India and other nations arrived, Nepal's capital was on the verge of running out of fuel. Taps were spewing sewage water and the threat of an epidemic was looming on the horizon. The Nepalese government seemed clueless in the face of so much death and destruction. Most Nepalese I spoke to concurred, "Nepal was much better under the King than under an elected government."