The Nepal Earthquake

The Nepal Earthquake: Humbled and Helpless (Part 1)

About one year ago I survived the deadly earthquake that struck Nepal. Clocking in at a 7.9, and followed by days of strong aftershocks, the disaster ultimately killed over 7,000 people. Here’s my story of the experience.

The back of Sam's Cafe, where I woke up that morning

I awoke that Saturday morning on a dirty mat in the back room of my favorite local cafe. My fellow volunteer, a pale red headed Brit named Patrick, slept on another dirty mat in the next room. The owner Sam was a friend of mine and he had thrown me a going away party the night before. I’d spent 3 months in rural Bhanjyang volunteering at the the Tashi Choeloing Buddhist monastery, and had befriended many local Nepali's in my time there. In the mornings I’d teach English to little monks, and in the afternoons I’d sit in Sam’s cafe drinking rice beer and smoking cigarettes. That night we reminisced and drank long into the night. The cafe was two minutes from my monastery, but the large gated doors were locked at 8 every night. Fortunately in typical hospitable Nepali fashion Sam let us crash on the two beds he reserved for displaced travelers and drunks.

 A symphony of clucking chickens, screaming goats and barking dogs rang screeched through my hungover ears as I helped clean up the mess, and wait for Patrick to rise. Eventually he did and we nursed our hangovers with tea and french toast (Or “eggy bread” as the Brits call it). Then we headed up to the monastery. We’d planned to leave that morning and head into the heart of Kathmandu to attend the 5th Annual Nepali Tattoo convention. I gathered the few belongs that I hadn't sold or traded, but when it came time to leave I couldn’t find any of my monk friends or students to say goodbye. I learned they were scattered around the monastery and town, so we went back to the cafe and decided to wait until lunchtime for them to return. We sat for hours quietly drinking tea and smoking cigarettes. Around 11:50 we left the cafe, walked back up the hill and passed through the large monastery gates

“Namaste,” I said to the old, uniformed guard, as we passed. By now he was well used to seeing me come and go.

Patrick followed behind and we continued up the hill.

We were standing by the monastery’s large stupa, a square shrine with a row of prayer wheels on each side, when we heard the first rattle. The rattling sound grew louder and I looked up at the stupa expecting to see little monks causing mischief. The rattle grew louder and louder and turned into a low roar. Then the ground began to shake.

“Oh fuck it’s an earthquake!” shouted Patrick.

Almost the exact spot where I was standing when the earthquake struck.

The shaking grew stronger and it became hard to stand. There is nothing you can do when the whole world is throwing you around. We expected the ground to open up and engulf us. I’ve never felt so helpless and humbled in my life. When everything shakes, you are nothing. You are a speck and can only be in the right place or the wrong. But we were lucky. I gained enough composure to look up and check if anything could fall on us. Luckily, there wasn’t. We stayed on the side of the hill in relative safety as the world continued to throw us around. With a good view of the farming valley below, Patrick and I watched helplessly as half a dozen mud brick houses collapsed in huge clouds of red dust.

 The shaking died down and we became very as nauseous as we tried regain our equilibrium. After a few moments of dizziness we recovered enough to run the rest of the way back up the hill to the monastery, which was in complete chaos. Although nothing had collapsed, the monks were in an absolute panic. Westerners take for granted that we understand the gist of the science behind earthquakes, but the monks didn’t have this educational luxury. They were convinced that they were all going to die. A group of about 20 young monks even brought out a portable DVD player so that they could watch one last movie before death.

The Stupa

As we gathered in the monastery courtyard, a huge aftershock, clocking in at a 7.6, rocked us again. It made anyone who hadn’t already shit in their pants to finally do so. All we could do was wait, huddle together, and pray there was enough toilet paper left for us all. The aftershock wasn’t nearly as bad as the initial quake, and we were moderately expecting it, so it came and went pretty fast. After the shaking stopped I ran over to the fancy hotel that was used for yoga retreats, where there luckily was still a wifi connection and made a quick post to reddit about how strong the earthquake felt. Little did I know that this would be my last link to the outside world for the next 3 days...

I spent the next hour with Patrick trying to educate the young monks on the basics of plate tectonics. Patrick and I both knew that the worst of the shaking was probably over, but the monks still expected to die at any moment. It was truly terrifying to see the look of utter helplessness and panic on the faces of the such usually happy and carefree group of kids. I will never forget it.

The Courtyard

 After the panic began to subside, Patrick and I decided that we would still head back to Kathamandu as initially planned. After a weird, uncomfortable goodbye, I gathered my bags and we hopped in a cab headed down the mountain. Thats when the true magnitude of the destruction began to sink in. On the 30 minute journey back to the city, we saw house after house that had fully or partially collapsed. Every brick wall we passed was now lying neatly on the ground, but with the bricks still in order. What was a brick wall yesterday was a brick path today. Unfortunately, however, we still had yet to see the worst of the destruction...