Two teams of doctors and psychosocial care specialists from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) are in Nepal to help coordinate relief and rescue operations following last week'searthquake which has claimed nearly 7,000 thus far. TISS director S Parasuraman told dna, "We have nearly 100 students from the school of social work and the centre for disaster management, who will be joining in the relief work as soon as they are assigned."

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Professor Parasuraman was at a national meeting at the ministry for rural development on Saturday when he got a call from the NDMA about sending in the teams. "Nepal was waiting to happen. So TISS and we have been working on mock drills on reaching aid to Nepal since 2000. We were just awaiting a signal from the government."

That there are nearly 60 students from Nepal studying at TISS will only help in outreach as langauge will not be a constraint. "We have chosen students who are already in the upper reaches of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to go to Nepal," said Parasuraman. "We will be working closely with the Nepal School of Social Work which is also headed by a TISS graduate," points out the director.The Tata Group, which has been monitoring developments, is ready to help fund the students' travel, he said, adding that a team each from Oxfam, Action Aid and Plan were already on the ground. "As the army and other paramilitary forces move out with their JCBs, the real challenge of reaching out will begin. While food, clothing and shelter are very important, it is equally if not more important to address the psychosocial trauma the Nepalese are going through."

TISS has been at the centre of relief and rehab following both the 6.2-magnitude 1993 Latur quake, which killed over 10,000 people, and the 7.7-magnitude Bhuj quake, which killed double that number. "TISS was then asked by both the government of Maharashtra and the World Bank to become the nodal agency for rehabilitation, especially in the 53 villages which were completely destroyed in the Latur earthquake."

Not only have many of the villages - with earthquake-proof structures and toilets - which saw social engineering bringing dalits, nomadic tribes and upper caste Marathas together remained modelvillages, but the psychosocial intervention template is now sought after by disaster relief organisations across the world. According to Parsuraman, the conditions in Nepal mirror Latur in many ways. "Like Latur where people were trying to keep the heat out, here too, to keep the cold out the mud-and-stone walls are really thick and the doorways small. This, in many instances, comes as double whammy for both those within and without. In several instances parts of the walls have collapsed on the streets outside leading to injuries and death."Incidentally, following the Bhopal gas tragedy in 1984, which killed nearly 10,000, TISS suspended lectures and students were all made part of the relief intervention. Parsuraman adds, "Expertise gathered in Bhopal and then the Jambhulpada floods in 1987 (which washed off an entire village) helped us when we similarly deployed several teams 2001 earthquake in Bhuj and the 2004 tsunami."Read how Nepalis are coping with the trauma on page (PUSH)