Letter from Nepal: Setting off to help earthquake victims

With three weeks of annual leave to use before the end of the holiday year, I felt compelled to help the people of Nepal following April’s devastating earthquake.

While arranging my holiday, which would see me take in the sites of Japan before taking the Trans-Siberian train from Moscow, through Mongolia, to Beijing, the 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck.

Early reports, which focused on Kathmandu and Everest Base Camp, suggested only a few hundred had died before it increased to thousands.

Nepal’s infrastructure was already precarious and it was clear to me that with villages that could not be reached and contacted, the death toll would rise further.

Having visited Nepal before, I knew how much the disaster would affect them and I felt guilty I had not revisited the country sooner.

More than a decade after my last visit, I was ready to return to help with part of building Kathmandu before the monsoon season hit.