Nepal quake: We were not even sure if our hotel was still standing: Apeksha Padukone

What had begun as a vacation for 26 year old Apeksha Padukone and her three friends, turned into a nightmare on 25th April when Nepal shook from the devastating earthquake.

Padukone had reached Nepal on the 23rd and was staying Thamel, a tourist hotspot in Kathmandu.

“When the earthquake struck, we were all in a bus. We were on our way to Pokhra where we were going to go on a trek. Suddenly the bus veered of the road and into the mountain side that was on one side of the road. We didn’t realise what was happening for the first 10 seconds or so, then the driver hit the brakes but the bus continued to shake. It went on for six minutes,” described Padukone, a resident of Andheri.

Before panic could ensue, the driver and the conductor of the bus convinced passengers to stay inside the bus. The bus was a sturdy shuttle bus and the passengers came out a few minutes later rattled but unharmed.

Padukone’s group was advised by some locals to go into the mountains as they had planned, as being away from the city would reduce any chances of being hurt by the aftershocks.

“We went into the mountain and camped there from the 25th to the 27th of April. We were on the ground space of a resort whose resources were fast running out as they catered to nearly 500 people’s food and other basic needs. Although our original plan was to stay in the forests for only one night, we ended up staying there for nearly two days. We were told that the tremors of an earthquake can occur till 72 hours after. So we decided to wait it out,” recounts Padukone.

The decision was a sound one since, besides one tree, no other casualties was sighted in the forest. The challenge however was communication. Due to the high intensity of the earthquake all mobile network connections were infrequent if not dead.

Padukone describes their frustration in the mountains, “We were already up in the hills where the connection isn’t too great, added to that, all landline connections were dead. There was no electricity and our parents had no way to contact us. Thankfully we had informed them about our plan before we got into the mountains, so they knew we were safe, but nothing more.”

As the tremors continued to shake the terrain, Padukone and her friends stayed up in the tents they had pitched. With resources running out, they decided to descend and return to the city on the 27th.
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Initially we were worried that we were not even sure if we would be able to get our belongings from the hotel or if the hotel was even standing but fortunately, being a relatively new structure, it was standing relatively unharmed.”

From here on Padukone and her friends spent the next two days trying to get evacuated by the air force but the long queues that they waited in for longer than 12 hours per day were getting nowhere.

Padukone was not going to be one of the lucky few to be evacuated by the air force planes, “In the end we noticed that the people who were waiting at the front of the queue were the same people from 12 hours ago. We realised that there was an overwhelming number of people wanting to get out of Nepal, some without any sort of luggage, and they were all waiting for the air force planes. Earlier to reaching to the airport we had gone to the Indian embassy where the guards did not even let us inside or offer us any sort of succour in terms of food or aid, but directed us straight to the airport.”

At the end of 4 stressful days, on the 28th,  the friends booked a scheduled Spice Jet flight out of Nepal for on the following day. The airport however was jammed and the flight that scheduled for the 3.30 pm left the Tribhuvan International Airport at 11pm.

Padukone and her friends are now safely back in their homes and are trying to recuperate from the ordeal as they thank their stars that they made it back unharmed and safe.