HAT - Humanitarian Aid Trust Nepal

INF Nepal’s Ongoing Support to Earthquake-Affected Communities

In the aftermath of the devastating 6.4 magnitude earthquake that struck Nepal’s Jajarkot and Rukum districts, INF Nepal has been actively engaged in providing urgent relief to the affected communities.

According to the latest Situation Report from Disaster Preparedness Network, Nepal, the earthquake resulted in the tragic loss of 153 lives, with 357 reported injuries. A total of 26,557 houses were completely destroyed, and 35,455 were partially damaged.

The dis­as­ter sig­nif­i­cantly harmed crucial infra­struc­ture, includ­ing res­i­den­tial build­ings, schools, health­care centres, and admin­is­tra­tive struc­tures. Despite chal­lenges such as short­ages of oxygen cylin­ders and ade­quate hos­pi­tal beds, secu­rity forces and medical teams swiftly con­ducted rescue and relief operations.

Demon­strat­ing high-level concern, the Pres­i­dent and Prime Min­is­ter of Nepal per­son­ally visited the affected areas, pro­vid­ing direct over­sight of the ongoing relief oper­a­tions. The gov­ern­ment swiftly released a relief package of NPR 100 million to bolster these efforts, ear­marked explic­itly for search and rescue endeavours.

Notably, foreign gov­ern­ments and inter­na­tional organ­i­sa­tions have expressed sol­i­dar­ity by extend­ing their support or affirm­ing their com­mit­ment to aid the affected com­mu­ni­ties in imme­di­ate relief and long-term reha­bil­i­ta­tion initiatives.

INF Nepal has reg­u­larly coor­di­nated with provin­cial, dis­trict, and local gov­ern­ment author­i­ties and has been on the ground since day one. INF has been actively engaged in the imme­di­ate dis­tri­b­u­tion of relief items, fos­ter­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with diverse gov­ern­ment and non-gov­ern­ment stake­hold­ers and posi­tion­ing itself for the impacted com­mu­ni­ties’ exten­sive recov­ery and reha­bil­i­ta­tion needs.

Here are some of INF’s response activities:

• Food Dis­tri­b­u­tion: On 6th Novem­ber, INF Nepal dis­trib­uted ready-to-eat food items, includ­ing noodles, bis­cuits, nutri­tion food, and beaten rice, to 100 fam­i­lies in Nalgad Munic­i­pal­ity Ward No. 6, Jajarkot.
• Essen­tial Relief Items: On 11th Novem­ber, INF Nepal dis­trib­uted 100 tar­pau­lins, 300 warm caps, 1200 square meters of mat­tresses, 2400 meters of ropes, and 200 warm blan­kets to 150 fam­i­lies in Nalgad Munic­i­pal­ity Ward No. 8, Jajarkot.
• Fiber Blanket Dis­tri­b­u­tion: On 12th Novem­ber, 200 fibre blan­kets were dis­trib­uted in Bheri Munic­i­pal­ity Ward 6, Jajarkot.
• Dis­abil­ity Support: INF Nepal is col­lab­o­rat­ing with the National Fed­er­a­tion of Disabled–Nepal (NFDN) Surkhet to address the needs of persons with disability.

INF Nepal’s short-term plan

• Win­ter­i­sa­tion package dis­tri­b­u­tion: With the winter season under­way and reported deaths among earth­quake-affected indi­vid­u­als in tem­po­rary shel­ters due to cold weather, INF is gearing up to address the sit­u­a­tion. The ini­tia­tive involves dis­trib­ut­ing win­ter­i­sa­tion pack­ages con­tain­ing warm blan­kets, pillows, bed covers, mat­tresses, and warm caps. This effort targets 500 fam­i­lies, with 300 in Jajarkot and 200 in West Rukum, aiming for com­ple­tion by the end of the first week of Decem­ber 2023.
• Ben­e­fi­ciary final­i­sa­tion: A team will be deployed to Jajarkot and West Rukum to finalise ben­e­fi­cia­ries and assess the number of persons with disabilities.
• Shelter con­struc­tion train­ing: A three-day train­ing pro­gramme for staff and vol­un­teers will enhance imme­di­ate shelter con­struc­tion capabilities.
• CGI sheet support: INF Nepal aims to provide CGI sheet support for imme­di­ate shelter con­struc­tion for 50 houses in Jajarkot.

As INF Nepal remains com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing imme­di­ate relief and con­tribut­ing to long-term recov­ery efforts, the organ­i­sa­tion seeks support from its part­ners to address the urgent and evolv­ing needs of the affected communities.