Kathmandu, April 25

Three years after the catastrophic earthquakes left nearly 9,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands of families homeless, the Nepal Red Cross Society today said it, with support from Red Cross Red Crescent partners, had helped make substantial progress towards recovery.

A new district hospital is already in operation and 18 health posts have been reconstructed and handed over to health authorities. An additional 23 health posts are being rebuilt.

Support for health staff quarters and equipment ensures essential services are continued and sustainable, it said in a press release today.

“Working alongside the affected communities, we have achieved a lot of progress in the last year, But it’s not all about ‘hardware’, because the focus is also on providing people with the awareness and information to improve their health and mitigate the risks of disease and future disaster,” said Nepal Red Cross Society  Chairman Sanjiv Thapa.

“All this progress shows the importance of addressing communities’ needs in an integrated way,” said Nepal Red Cross Society General Dev Ratna Dhakhwa.

“Three years after the earthquake, the disaster response is now in transition to a sustainable, longer-term operation to work with communities to address their needs, continuing to listen to people’s voices and communicate with them and prioritise the needs of women and children and vulnerable groups,” said Juja Kim, head of International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ Country Office in Nepal.