道路受阻，震中地區(qū)救援告急

Villages Near Nepal Earthquake’s Epicenter Are Desperate as Death Toll Tops 3,800

道路受阻，震中地區(qū)救援告急

SAURPANI, Nepal — Five hours by car from Katmandu, then by foot for several miles past the spot where the road is blocked by boulders and mud, people from the villages near the epicenter of Nepal’s powerful earthquake are burying their dead, despairing of help arriving anytime soon.

尼泊爾紹爾巴尼——從加德滿都驅(qū)車五小時，再步行幾英里，穿過道路被巨石和淤泥阻塞的地方，才能來到尼泊爾大地震震中附近的村落。那里的人們正在埋葬逝去的親人，對救援會很快到來已經(jīng)絕望。

On Monday afternoon, Parbati Dhakal and several dozen of her neighbors walked two hours down a jungle path, carrying 11 bodies attached to bamboo poles. They stopped at a riverbank where they lowered the dead into holes.

周一下午，帕爾巴提·達卡爾(Parbati Dhakal)和幾十位鄰居用竹竿挑著11具尸體，沿著一條林中小路步行了兩小時。他們在河邊停下，把死者放進坑里。

One of the villagers pointed to the people gathered there and identified them, one by one: “Father just buried; mother just buried; sister just buried.”

其中一名村民指著集中在那里的人，一個接一個地說出他們的身份：“剛剛埋了父親、剛剛埋了母親、剛剛埋了姐妹。”

Back in Saurpani, an ethnic Gurkha village at the epicenter of Saturday’s quake, Ms. Dhakal said, “we have no shelter, no food and all the bodies are scattered around.”

回到紹爾巴尼(Saurpani)——周六地震震中地區(qū)的一個廓爾喀人村莊——達卡爾說，“我們沒有擋風遮雨的地方，沒有食物，遍地都是尸體。”

A day after Nepal’s worst earthquake in 80 years, the official death toll had risen to more than 3,800, and humanitarian aid was starting to flow to the capital. Katmandu’s airport had been so overloaded by aid and passenger planes that incoming flights sat for hours on the runway. Nepali expatriates were flying in, desperate to track down family members, and setting off down the airport access road on foot, rolling suitcases behind them.

在尼泊爾80年來最嚴重的地震發(fā)生一天之后，官方統(tǒng)計的死亡人數(shù)已超過4000人，人道主義援助也開始涌入首都加德滿都。這里的機場因為過多的救援飛機和客機而超過了負荷，進港的航班不得不在跑道上停留幾個小時。移居國外的尼泊爾人紛紛飛回來，迫切希望了解親人的情況。他們開始在機場通向外部的道路上步行，身后拖著行李箱。

But outside the capital, many of the worst-hit villages in the ridges around Katmandu remain a black hole, surrounded by landslides that make them inaccessible even to the country’s armed forces. Nepali authorities on Monday began airdropping packages of tarpaulins, dry food and medicine into mountain villages, but an attempt to land helicopters was abandoned, said Brigadier General Jagadish Chandra Pokharel, an army spokesman.

但是在首都以外的地方，位于加德滿都周邊山區(qū)的許多受災最嚴重的村莊仍然是個黑洞。由于村莊外圍的山體滑坡，就連尼泊爾的武裝部隊都無法進入。周一，尼泊爾當局開始向山村空投防水帆布、干糧和藥物，但陸軍發(fā)言人賈格迪什·錢德拉·波卡雷爾準將(Jagadish Chandra Pokharel)表示，已放棄讓直升機降落的打算。

The government is only gradually getting a grasp of the destruction in these isolated places. It is nearly impossible to identify which villages are most in need, and how many may be dead or injured, said Jeffrey Shannon, director of programs for Mercy Corps in Nepal.

對這些與世隔絕的地方的破壞情況，政府才剛剛有所了解。援助機構(gòu)國際美慈組織(Mercy Corps)尼泊爾地區(qū)的項目負責人杰弗里·香農(nóng)(Jeffrey Shannon)表示，幾乎無法確定哪些村莊最需要幫助，以及具體的死傷人數(shù)。

“Right now, what we’re hearing from everybody, including our own staff, is that we don’t know,” he said. “As people start to travel these roads, to reach these communities, you run into landslides. They’re simply inaccessible, the ones that need the most help.”

“目前，我們從人們那里聽到最多的，包括從我們自己的工作人員口中說出的，就是‘不知道’，”他說。“開始走上這些道路，希望去到這些社區(qū)的時候，就會碰上山體滑坡。這些地方根本無法進入，而它們最亟需幫助。”

The chief bureaucrat in Gorkha district, Uddhav Timilsina, said rescue crews were unable even to distribute relief, because they are confronting as many as eight to 10 landslides between one village and its nearest neighbor. He said 250 deaths had been reported so far, but that it would take more time to get an accurate count.

廓爾喀地區(qū)的首席長官烏德夫·提米爾西納(Uddhav Timilsina)表示，就連分發(fā)救濟品，救援人員也無法做到，因為在兩座距離最近的村莊之間，他們會遇到多達八到十次的山體滑坡。他說，目前通報的死亡人數(shù)為250人，但獲得精確數(shù)據(jù)還需要更多時間。

“Phone lines are down, electricity is out, roads are blocked, so what can we do?” he said.

“電話線斷了，電停了，路不通，我們能干什么呢?”他反問道。

In interviews, residents of hard-hit villages said their plight had not been in the foreground during the early days of the crisis. Prakash Dhakal, a native of the village of Saurpani, was in Katmandu when the earthquake struck, and visited a government office on Sunday to plead with an official to send help.

遭受重創(chuàng)的村莊的居民在接受采訪時表示，在此次危機爆發(fā)的最初幾天，他們的困境沒有成為關注的重點。地震發(fā)生時，紹爾巴尼村村民普拉卡什·達卡爾(Prakash Dhakal)正在加德滿都。他周日前往了一家政府機構(gòu)，懇求官員給予救助。

“I asked them to send 25 young people to help bury our dead and search for the injured,” Mr. Dhakal said. “They told me, ‘We can’t even rescue the injured in Katmandu. How do you expect us to do anything for you now?’??”

“我請求他們派25名年輕人幫我們埋葬死者，搜尋傷員，”達卡爾說。“他們告訴我，‘就連加德滿都的傷員，我們都救不過來。你怎么能指望我們現(xiàn)在幫你們呢?’”

Around 90 percent of Nepal’s troops, which number 90,000, have been mobilized for disaster relief since Sunday, according to Gen. Pokharel. Most of that force has been concentrated in Katmandu, though, and the army had only 12 operational helicopters available at the time of the disaster. India has since donated six more.

尼泊爾共有9萬名軍人。據(jù)波卡雷爾準將透露，自周日以來，已經(jīng)動用了其中大約90%來參與救災工作。不過，大部分兵力集中在加德滿都，而且，災難發(fā)生時，軍隊只有12架可以使用的直升機。后來，印度又捐贈了六架直升機。

The residents of Saurpani, as they made their way down to the banks of the Daraudi River with the bodies of their relatives, described a landscape of destruction. There had been 1,300 houses in Saurpani, but one resident, Shankar Thapa, said, “all the houses collapsed.”

紹爾巴尼的村民一邊抬著親屬的遺體前往杜拉迪河的岸邊，一邊描述了慘烈的景象。這座村莊共有1300所房屋，但村民尚卡爾·塔帕(Shankar Thapa)表示，“所有房子都倒了。”

Villagers said luck seemed to determine who lived and who died. Nar Bahadur Nepali, a 37-year-old farmer, said most of the structures in his village had collapsed, including his house.

村民們表示，是生是死似乎全憑運氣。37歲的納爾·巴杜哈爾·尼帕利(Nar Bahadur Nepali)稱，村里的大多數(shù)建筑都已倒塌，包括自家的房子。

“We survived because there was a wedding in the village, and we were out in an open area,” he said. At least 60 or 70 more people would have died had it not been for the wedding, he said.

他說，“當時村里正在舉辦婚禮，我們在露天的場地上，所以活了下來。”他表示，如果不是那場婚禮的話，可能還會有至少六七十人喪命。

The earthquake that hit on Saturday, shortly before noon, had a magnitude of 7.8, and early reports suggest that those villages that were damaged were nearly obliterated.

周六中午前不久發(fā)生的這場地震達7.8級。早期報道顯示，那些受災村莊幾乎徹底被毀。

Along the hills and valleys at the epicenter on Monday, relatives were making their way back home from Katmandu, where they had been working when the earthquake struck.

周一的時候，震中地區(qū)起伏的山巒中有一些從加德滿都回家的親屬。地震發(fā)生時，他們在加德滿都工作。