00:00Well, I've been speaking to Sagar Srestha. He's Director of Disaster and Crisis Management at the Nepal Red Cross Society.
00:08The scale of disaster so far is still not to confirm, but we know that locality especially.
00:14So from that Chinese border to the downstairs, there's a lot of like civilizations are living there.
00:22So apparently more than 5,000 plus, I would rather say 10,000 people are really affected out of it.
00:30It means it's a huge devastation comparing to even the earthquake of 2015.
00:36Up to 10,000 people you say could have been affected in one way or the other.
00:41Is the worst of the danger over or could we see areas downstream affected in coming days?
00:49I would say that according to today's information, the real damage happened, especially as far as the human casualties is
00:58concerned,
00:58which is exactly the border of China because they didn't get any information.
01:03But immediately once the flood is coming, so including Red Cross and other agencies also, we disseminated the early warning
01:10message.
01:10So we were able to like evacuate the many people from the two or three districts, which is downstreaming.
01:15So people get saved there, but devastation as far as the home.
01:20And the main thing is like bridges also and the road.
01:24And the interesting part is that, you know, like there is a 14 hydro power.
01:30That corridor is the hydro corridor.
01:32So it's a huge investment.
01:34More than 14 hydro power is on that corridor.
01:37So that has been totally devastated.
01:39It means that it's a huge devastation, I think, in the centuries of like in this decade of the Nepal
01:46history.
01:47So massive damage to infrastructure as well.
01:50The hydro power, I would imagine, will that impact the entire region's energy supplies?
01:57Yes, this will entirely impact for the overall Nepal also.
02:01Sometime this energy also goes to the India also.
02:05So this will impact for the whole region, including Nepal also.
02:08You can imagine 14 hydro power means you just imagine how it is the impact, you know.
02:13I understand this is a multi-country effort, also with the fact that a number of foreign nationals are missing.
02:19Just talk to me about the coordination across countries.
02:25Yes, so I think as far as the public authorities, government is concerned, there is almost already we are busy
02:32with our internal meeting.
02:34So there are teams who are going for our government meeting also.
02:38I think the government are also really engaged with me, especially for the China and India.
02:43So there are many, many Indian plegaments come also to that particular part.
02:46So India and China is getting a lot of attention.
02:49I think our public authorities are really talking to them.
02:53But as far as the humanitarian is concerned, so we are preparing for our one mechanism to like activate our
03:00tools.
03:01So already our emergency response team are already in the field.
03:05And more than 50 plus volunteers are engaged in search and rescue.
03:10And our headquarters emergency response team are already deployed and they are now working for the initial rapid assessment, detail
03:18assessment.
03:18So we dispatched more than 300 family non-food relief items and some food items like toilets and, you know,
03:27like whatever they're like, a first aid kit and the hygiene kits.
03:32That's what we deployed.
03:33So the more information, the accurate information, maybe two or three days later, but right now, not much information regarding
03:40the casualties.
03:42That was Sagar Strester.
03:43He's Director of Disaster and Crisis Management at the Nepal Red Cross Society.
