In the wake of Nepal’s devastating earthquake, Fergus resident Dorothy McEachern is once again working with Samaritan’s Purse to help people in need.
With a rising death toll from the devastating earthquake in Nepal, officials struggle to gauge the full scale of the disaster and the world rushed to provide desperately needed aid.
Dozens of aftershocks jolted Nepal on Saturday and Sunday as people sheltered where they could.
Nepalese authorities continually revised the number of dead upwards a day after the Himalayan country was shaken by a magnitude 7.8 quake that wrecked houses, flattened centuries-old temples and triggered avalanches on Mount Everest.
More than 5,000 people had been injured, with the number of dead and injured expected to rise in the coming days. Nepalese police officials said more than 700 people died in Kathmandu alone.
McEachern is once again working to make a difference.
The Fergus resident works at both Groves Memorial Community Hospital and Grand River Family Physicians.
In 2014 and 2015 McEachern was in Liberia working with Samaritan’s Purse assisting victims of the Ebola virus. Other medical mission’s included missions in China and Haiti.
As of noon on April 27, McEachern emailed the Advertiser office to let us know she was in Bangkok awaiting a morning flight in the morning to Kathmandu to help with the relief efforts after the earthquake.
“I am with Samaritans purse we are the first team of eight to arrive. I am working in the capacity of operating room nurse.”
McEachern said she was called “about noon on Saturday and I was on a plane 7am Sunday morning. This must happen fast as people are suffering, some close to death, the sooner we can get in there the better the chances of survival. We are just one of many relief agency’s going in. Several canine units are encounter to help find survivors or bodies.”
The Samaritan’s Purse website states a Samaritan’s Purse disaster response team member who arrived in Kathmandu, Nepal, in the early morning hours on Sunday is seeing incredible destruction, death, and need in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake.
“There’s a lot of hurting people here,” said Patrick Seger, the team leader for our response. “I saw a number of needs out there, a number of dead people, a lot of structures had fallen. A lot of people lost their homes and lost their incomes. They’re trying to figure out what they’re going to do.”
Samaritan’s Purse is rushing disaster response experts and supplies to Nepal in the aftermath of the catastrophic 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck the country on Saturday, killing thousands and destroying numerous houses and buildings.
More than 3,900 people are known to have died, and the death toll is expected to rise as officials dig through the rubble. Over 7,000 were injured. Tens of thousands are homeless.
Seger said “There are a lot of people sleeping out in the streets,” he said. “They are fearful of the buildings and don’t want to sleep inside. They are sleeping in the rain because they don’t have any other shelter.”
Samaritan’s Purse deployed a team of disaster response experts, including medical personnel. An initial airlift of 60 tons of relief supplies is on the way. We will help victims with shelter, water, hygiene kits, and other relief, and partner with mission hospital partners.
We are sending initial supplies for 15,000 households, and anticipate doing more as the response continues.
The medical team and supplies will support mission hospitals that are Samaritan’s Purse partners.
The quake struck an area between the capital, Kathmandu, and the city of Pokhara, the US Geological Survey said. Tremors were felt across the region, with further loss of life in India, Bangladesh and on Mount Everest.
The quake struck before noon local time and was most severely felt in the capital as well as the densely populated Kathmandu Valley. A magnitude-6.6 aftershock hit about an hour later, and smaller aftershocks continued to ripple through the region for hours.
