Nepal Teenager Is Rescued From Rubble Five Days After Earthquake
By ELLEN BARRY and GARDINER HARRIS

KATMANDU, Nepal — Five days had passed since an earthquake devastated Nepal, and rescue teams had largely given up hope of finding anyone else alive among the piles of brick and broken concrete that litter Katmandu. Then on Thursday, in a part of the city dense with cheap hotels and shops, rescuers turned off a mechanical shovel and — in the relative silence — heard a cry.

In the mess lay a 15-year-old hotel worker, Pemba Tamang. A team of rescuers from the United States offered the Nepali crew a camera that was snaked through the debris. It showed the teenager trapped under a metal shutter. A concrete slab was poised above him — held up only by a flattened motorcycle.

“He was trapped in a 2.5 foot tall by 3.5 foot wide area behind the motorcycle,” said Chris Schaff, a battalion chief with the Fairfax County Fire Department from Virginia, who was on the American team. “He wasn’t being crushed; he was just pinned.”

The problem was the concrete slab. It was unstable and a threat not only to the teenager, but to the rescuers themselves, since it hung over the area where the men had to dig.

“It was the most concerned I’ve ever been about people under my command,” Chief Schaff said.

Despite the dangers, eight Nepali rescuers and two Americans continued to dig. As the news spread that someone might be rescued, residents, who have lived in fear as the city was battered by aftershocks, rushed to the scene, desperate for good news. The crowd swelled to several hundred, with people lining the roadway and craning for a glimpse from a nearby footbridge.

Dozens of Nepali soldiers also clustered around the site, apparently eager to be part of a proud moment after days of hardship, and amid frustration from citizens who accuse their government of ineptitude.

For the renowned search-and-rescue team from the United States, the task was a chance to finally save someone, after a dispiriting day Wednesday in the nearby city of Bhaktapur. There, people had hoped the rescuers could unearth bodies for a proper burial, but the team’s mission is to find the living.

When Mr. Tamang was finally lifted out, cheers rang out from the throng of onlookers witnessing what might be the last, or one of the last, rescues in a terrible week. Mr. Tamang’s face was covered in dust, and a blue brace had been placed around his neck. He told rescuers that he had managed to find ghee, or clarified butter, in his tiny enclosure, and it had sustained him. He was then taken to an Israeli field hospital in surprisingly good condition.

A woman at another site was also freed from the rubble during the day, after being trapped next to three people who had died.

The rescues were among the rare bits of good news on an otherwise dreary and rainy day during which the enormity of the tragedy continued to sink in. The death toll has already exceeded 5,800, with many more confirmed deaths expected.

Although aftershocks continue, the miserable weather seemed to have persuaded an increasing number to leave the tent cities set up throughout the city, presumably for their homes. Bus service to Nepal’s remote villages began again Thursday, with the government promising free rides. And flights between some of Nepal’s smaller cities and Katmandu resumed.

Officials announced Thursday the creation of a National Reconstruction Fund to rebuild infrastructure, and the government said that it would pay families almost $1,400 for each person who died as a result of the quake in order to help defray funeral costs and other expenses. The government’s top tourism official announced that climbs of Mount Everest may resume, if climbers decide to go ahead. Many of the climbers who had hoped to summit Mount Everest have already left; at least 19 were killed in massive avalanches triggered by the earthquake.

But the rescues were the news of the day. At a news conference, Bill Berger, who is overseeing rescue efforts for the United States Agency for International Development, spoke of how extraordinary it was to save people beyond the so-called “golden” hours after a quake when the likelihood of finding survivors are best. That period, he suggested, usually ends after three days.

“We had a really good day. Actually we had a great day,” he said. “Members of our urban search and rescue team were able to pull a live victim out of a pile, and I think for us and the Nepalis, given us new hope in a dire situation.”

奇蹟！活埋5天熬出好運 2人獲救

尼泊爾強震救災行動卅日因雨受阻，國際救災團隊同日從瓦礫堆中，救出遭活埋一百廿小時的十五歲少年塔曼格和一名廿多歲女子克莉希娜，讓救災人員士氣大振。

尼泊爾廿五日發生規模七點八強震，尼國政府已確認五八五八人喪生、一萬一千多人受傷，鄰近的印度和西藏共八十多人死亡。尼國總理奎亞拉說，迄今仍有許多偏遠災區無法深入，亟需各國調派直升機支援。尼國只有廿架直升機，大陸外交部發言人洪磊卅日說，中方將派直升機協助運送傷者。

尼國首都加德滿都救援活動因雨受阻。尼國內政部災難管理中心主管丹達說：「雨勢讓問題雪上加霜。大自然似乎在跟我們作對。」當地部分商店卅日於災後首度恢復營業，但也有災民為搶瓶裝水，與鎮暴警察發生衝突。

政府救災速度緩慢點燃民眾怒火，不少人廿九日在國會外抗議，還有村民擋下運送物資的卡車，要求政府加速發放物資。外界物資陸續湧入尼泊爾，但遲未送達災民手中。

尼國衛生相關非政府組織員工說，加德滿都幾個收容所缺乏乾淨水源和廁所，已出現腹瀉案例，未來幾天恐爆發大流行。

聯合國發起四億一千五百萬美元（約台幣一百廿七億元）的賑災募款，將展開馬拉松式行動協助尼國。聯合國駐尼協調員麥戈德瑞克說：「這是漫漫長路。解決賑災需求得花三個月，接著是復原和重建。」

另外，美國救災團隊卅日中午時分在加德滿都一棟倒塌的七層樓房中，救出受困一百廿小時的塔曼格。同一天，法國、挪威和以色列救災團隊花了十個小時，在一處倒塌的青年旅館中救出廿多歲的女員工克莉希娜。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/world/asia/nepal-earthquake-teenager-survivor-pulled-from-rubble.html

Extent of the Damage From the Nepal Earthquake
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/25/world/asia/nepal-earthquake-maps.html

2015-05-01．聯合報．A17．國際．編譯陳韻涵