Citizens leave Nepalese capital for safety of the countryside

Nepalese officials scrambled to get aid from the main airport to people left homeless and hungry by a devastating earthquake two days earlier, while thousands tired of waiting left the capital Kathmandu for the surrounding plains.

Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport was hobbled by many employees not showing up for work, people trying to get out, and a series of aftershocks which forced it to close several times since the quake.

Home minister Bam Dev Gautam was supervising aid delivery and arranging for passengers to leave the country. Government officials said they needed more supplies of food, medicines, specialised rescue services, and body bags.

“The morgues are getting totally full,” said Shankar Koirala, an official in the Prime Minister’s Office who is dealing with the disposal of bodies. Families lit funeral pyres for the dead in towns and across the countryside.

Yesterday, thousands streamed out of the city. Roads leading from Kathmandu were jammed with people, some carrying babies, trying to climb onto buses, or hitch rides aboard cars and trucks.

“We are escaping”, said Krishna Muktari, who runs a small store in Kathmandu, standing at an intersection.

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