Obstacles to Nepal earthquake relief

There’s a lot of aid headed toward Nepal, but it’s not getting there as fast as people would like. The reason: There aren’t enough runways.

The country’s only international airport is Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu. It’s tiny. It has just one runway. So it can’t accommodate all the planes flying in.

The single runway has been closed several times for earthquake repairs. Also, there are limited places for planes to park. On many days, pilots circled for hours waiting for another plane to take off because there’s no room to land.

This bottleneck has slowed the recovery effort. A terminal duty officer, who wouldn’t give his name because he’s not allowed to talk to the media, says the situation is bad: “It is a mess here. ”

That’s not the only obstacle to relief work. Some groups show up and don’t know what to do or where to go. Or how to get there.

“Even where there was no disaster here, it was just really difficult to get around,” says Lisa Rudolph, an American Red Cross worker who arrived from Washington, D.C. “Even within Kathmandu itself it can take an hour to get from one point to another. And so now with roads blocked [due to earthquake damage and] the airport congested, it’s going to be really difficult.”

[NPR]

This entry was posted in Humanitarian Aid, International Cooperation by Grant Montgomery.