Nepalis turn to rebuilding challenge

Two weeks after the earthquake that killed more than 7,700 people and flattened towns and villages across central Nepal, people in the country are turning to the challenges of reconstruction as the rescue effort fades.

Nepal is still counting the cost of the quake. The United Nations said it affected eight million of the country's 28 million people, with at least three million needing tents, water, food and medicines over the next three months. More than half a million houses were damaged or destroyed.

The repercussions from the 7.8 magnitude quake are still echoing around the Himalayan country, with many people still searching debris for the bodies of loved ones, or trying to deal with the trauma of the April 25th events.

Many of those affected are in mountainous regions, which are difficult to reach by road. Some survivors have relied on the efforts of ordinary Nepalis that have often gone unreported amid the huge relief operation by foreign agencies.

The international response has been slow to an appeal for emergency funds, said Jamie McGoldrick, the UN’s chief official in Nepal.

He said the agency had received $22 million (€19.6 million) so far against an appeal last week for $415 million (€369.6 million) to support relief efforts for the first three months. “This needs to be dramatically ramped up,” he told reporters in the capital, Kathmandu.

One of the worst-hit sites is Langtang village, where hundreds were buried by a landslide triggered by the tremor.

Rescue workers are struggling to recover the bodies of nearly 300 people, including about 110 foreigners, believed buried under up to six metres of ice, snow and rock.