KATHMANDU, May 1

Major General JS Sandhu of Indian Army today said that a massive rescue and relief operation was under way in earthquake affected areas in Nepal in close coordination with the Nepali Army.

In an interview with THT, Sandhu said Indian search and rescue workers including military personnel reached the inaccessible areas of the devastated villages of quake-hit districts and all humanitarian activities were being performed jointly with the Nepali Army. “We are helping the Nepali Army as per their requirement” the Major General said.

The AVSM and VSM honoured Major General, who has been overseeing and coordinating a massive rescue and relief operation from a task force office in Kathmandu said that the his team rescued more than sixty survivors from debris and evacuated over a thousand stranded persons of different nationalities from many parts of the country.

“Eight Mi 17 of Indian Air Force and five ALH helicopters of Indian Army are working from both Kathmandu and Pokhara and more than 150 tonnes of relief materials have been ferried to various districts and more than 300 sorties have been carried out,” Major General Sandhu said. “Our service focus is on what they (Nepali people) need rather than what we need.”

As first flight of relief effort landed from India within six hours of the devastating earthquake, 31 flights of C17 Globe Masters, IL76, C130 have brought in 498 tonnes of relief material such as tents, blankets, medicines, cook houses, food, water, heavy engineering equipment, ambulances, reverse osmosis plant, oxygen generators, among others.

Two full fledged Army field hospitals with 18 medical teams are now functional while 18 army engineer teams have also been supporting the needy, he added. “Over 2,000 patients have been treated by our medical personnel including life saving surgeries and of these 922 have been treated by the medical team at Barpak, the epicentre,” he said. According to him, Indian military personnel recovered more than 600 bodies from the debris.

Sixteen teams of the national disaster response force and a very large number of trucks with relief material have already arrived here. “The teams have been working round-the-clock ever since deployment,” he added.

Though there are a number of physical and geographical challenges to reach out to the needy, the joint military team of Nepal and India will leave no stone unturned to tackle the crisis, he concluded.