by Mohammad Shoeb
DOHA: Many Nepalese workers in Qatar are in a state of shock and grief as they are not able to establish contacts with their loved ones back home as the devastating 7.9 magnitude earthquake has disrupted communication lines in different parts of the country, including the capital Kathmandu.
“My wife is pregnant. I am very worried about her safety, but I am not able to get any information through any of the three numbers I have,” said Arjun Bahdur, a resident of Baglung district of Nepal.
Kamal, another resident of the same district, who gave only his first name, said: “The only information I have about my family is that my wife is alive, but I don’t know about my children and the damage the earthquake has caused to my house and my village.
“After several attempts I spoke to my wife for a few minutes while she was on her way back home from her parents’ village, but she was nearly 300 metres away. She could only say, ‘I can see from here, the house is standing, but can’t tell you anything more until I reach home’.” He said after this brief conversation, the phone got disconnected and since then he has been continuously trying for several hours but could not get through. “The only source of information about the earthquake is Facebook, which does not tell anything about my own people,” Kamal said.
“A friend of mine flew yesterday by Flydubai airline, but there is no news of him -- whether he has reached home or is stranded in Dubai,” he said. According to reports, Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport was shut yesterday following the earthquake, resulting in the cancellation of scores of flights from and to the airport, including Nepal Airlines, Flydubai, Air Arabia, Jet Airways and several flights of Qatar Airways.
But some Nepalese here are planning to fly to neighboring India and use the land routes to reach home as quickly as possible to join their families as they are not able to contact them.
A source told The Peninsula that most of the mobile services are dysfunctional. However, he said some fixed line phones and some mobiles networks are still in operation in some areas.
“My wife, who was supposed to land in Doha today, is stranded at Katmandu as the airport has been shut. But I am a bit relieved after talking to my brother in-law on his land phone,” said Deepak Prasad, who works with a leading hypermarket.
Prasad expressed his concern, saying: “Although the aid and rescue teams have started pouring in from overseas, including from India, there will be an acute shortage of food, water, and other essential items in the Nepal’s biggest city as the local supply lines have been severely damaged in the earthquake.”
According to him, the scale of damage will be very huge because most of the old houses in the country, including in Kathmandu, are made of mud and cement blocks with very little use of steel. Another Nepalese, Abdul Hakeem, working as an electrician, said: “As we come from an area close to the Indian border, most of the villagers carry an Indian number on standby, as the local networks often provide poor connectivity.”
The Peninsula
