Nepal urgently needs tents, dry food, medicine: official

Nepalese people line up to take plastic tents in Katmandu, Nepal on April 27, 2015.[Photo/CFP]

KATMANDU -- The government of Nepal urgently needs tents, dry food, mattresses, medicine and other basic essentials to distribute to its people who are in dire need of relief and support after Saturday's major earthquake and Sunday's aftershocks, a senior official said here on Monday.

At a press conference in capital Kathmandu, Chief Secretary of the Nepali government Leela Mani Paudyal said the government has requested China, India and other foreign countries to provide more assistance to Nepal.

The remarks came as tens and thousands of people in the Himalayan nation are spending chilly nights in the open for the past two days and looking for the basic essentials following the devastating earthquake on Saturday and a strong aftershock on Sunday afternoon.

"We are not able to distribute enough drinking water, dry food, mattresses, and medicines to the earthquake victims in such a difficult situation," the chief secretary said, adding that the government is doing its best to conduct rescue operations at the earliest.

But he conceded that the government is unable to send rescue teams to the far-flung villages of the country given the bad weather and difficult topography.

Many Nepalese have been experiencing power outage for the past two days since the 7.9-magnitude quake jolted central, western, mid-western and far-western parts, and the chief secretary said that the electricity could only be resumed on Tuesday.

The government of Nepal has not been able to determine the number of houses and properties destroyed in the earthquake.

"We don't have exact data of damaged houses and properties inside and outside the capital in the earthquake. It is our preliminary estimation the number of houses damaged is ten times higher than that of deaths and injured people," the chief secretary said.

Home Ministry spokesperson Laxmi Prasad Dhakal told Xinhua the government is giving top priority in rescue operations in 11 badly affected districts, including Kathmandu, Bhaktapur, Lalitpur, Rasuwa, Dhading, Gorkha, Sindhuli, Ramechhap, Sindhupalchowk, Lamjung, Kavrepalanchowk.

The Nepali government on Monday established five hotline numbers for hearing public grievances and opened six banking accounts if anyone wants to donate under the Prime Minister's Relief Fund.