Updated at 6pm
THE NAMES OF six Irish people who are still yet to contact home in the wake of the Nepal earthquake remain on the Red Cross website.
While the rescue effort goes on, Ireland has pledged to provide up to €1 million in assistance to families displaced by the earthquake.
Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Charlie Flanagan, TD, and Minister of State for Development, Trade Promotion and North South Co-operation, Seán Sherlock, TD, made the announcement today.
The €1 million will provide assistance including food, shelter, water, hygiene and basic medical supplies.
Help will be provided through Irish Aid’s NGO partners, and will be targeted “at the most vulnerable”.
Missing Irish
The names of the six Irish tourists or travellers have been posted using the charity’s ‘missing persons’ facility.
The website allows relatives to register a person’s details online.
Once they can get online themselves, the person listed can tick an ‘I am alive’ option to let people know they are okay.
These are the names of the Irish people listed on the page tonight:
Alex Murphy (25) Dublin
Pat Loughran (66) Dublin
Thomas Drumm (55) Monaghan
Ciaran Sands (55) Ireland
Niall Kavanagh (54) Dublin
Sam O’Neill (28) Ireland
Since this morning, five Irish people have used the site to confirm that they are safe following the tragedy, while three people’s names have been removed from the site.
Friends of a young woman whose name appeared in an earlier version of this article say she has also made contact with home, via Facebook message.
Oliver McKevitt, an Irishman living in Melbourne, is safe, according to Google person finder.
The Irish Times reports that Paul Greenan from Dublin was injured at Everest base camp, but has been flown to Kathmandu.
The Department of Foreign affairs believes some 120 Irish citizens are in the region affected. Efforts to contact everyone are ongoing – but communications in the area have been seriously hampered as a result of the natural disaster.
The vast majority of Irish citizens are accounted for.
The Deaprtment of Foreign Affairs established an emergency consular response team on Saturday.
The aftermath
Irish tourists and aid workers trapped in Nepal have told of food and water shortages – as the Himalayan nation struggles to cope in the aftermath of Saturday’s 7.9 magnitude quake.
Some travellers have have been pitching in with the recovery effort, as a massive international response gets under way.
Meanwhile – climbers injured or otherwise caught-up in the avalanches that hit Mount Everest are being evacuated from the region.
Paul Greenan, from Dublin, suffered serious but non-life threatening injuries when a huge avalanche hit Everest base camp on Saturday.
“They saw the avalanche coming and were able to make a run for it but the camp was right in the middle of it,” another climber, Tom Briggs, told The Guardian.
18 people died at the peak – and helicopters have been evacuating scores of injured climbers and their teams from the area.
Longford climber Paul Devaney made contact via social media in the immediate aftermath of the disaster to let family and friends know he was safe.
A further update from his team this morning said that people still stationed at Camp 1 and 2, above base camp, were being evacuated from the mountain by chopper.
There were no reports of any injuries in his international team, a post on Facebook said.
“Once down, the plan is to evacuate all from Base Camp shortly and onto Pheriche where they will set up camp.
“Base Camp is no longer considered safe due to the possibility of further aftershocks and resulting avalanches.
The plan is to then remain in Pheriche until the time comes when travelling to Kathmandu becomes viable, at which point they will be flown out of Nepal.
Other Irish climbers and trekking teams have also been contacting home to let family members know they are okay.
Tourism department chief Tulsi Gautam told AFP that climbing season might be called off in the wake of the avalanche.
Kathmandu
Jack Hogan, an aid worker with the Umbrella Foundation, said people had been sleeping outdoors in Kathmandu – as they were fearful buildings damaged in Saturday’s disaster could yet collapse.
Speaking to RTÉ News, he said 50 children and 10 staff from the charity, which helps victims of human trafficking, were “living in a makeshift tent in a playground awaiting further instructions”.
All around us is rubble and destroyed buildings. It’s lashing rain – we’re all huddled into the tent. We’ve got some drinking water supplied and we’ve had some rice for dinner.
He said the city had been devastated by the impact of the natural disaster. “The destruction is massive – so it’s quite a distressing situation, but we’re just trying to be positive and we’re just trying to follow all the precautions and doing what we can.”
Barry Torrens, from Portrush in County Antrim, was outside Kathmandu when the earthquake hit.
He’s detailed scenes of “devastation” in the region he passed through on his way back to the capital.
Food and water shortages are now beginning to seriously impact on survivors, he said in an interview with Morning Ireland.
“It’s okay running out of power and electricity and communications, it’s a very different matter running out of water,” Torrens said.
We’ve found that there’s a tremendous amount of gangs of people roaming the city looking for water. We were able to buy some water first thing this morning but come about noon local time all the shops had run out.
He described the atmosphere as “quite ugly” and “very tense” and said he and around 200 other people had gathered on the grounds of the British Embassy to seek shelter. They’re hoping to be evacuated from the region tomorrow.
Donations and help from Ireland
Trócaire has committed an initial €100,000 to the Nepal emergency response, and said it is focused on getting shelter, food and water to people left homeless.
Donations received by Trócaire will go towards the Caritas response, as Trócaire is a member of the global Caritas network of humanitarian agencies.
Noreen Gumbo, Trócaire’s Head of Humanitarian Programmes, said:
Our partner organisations in Nepal have already begun distributing shelter, food and water to people left homeless by the earthquake. Food and water are also desperately needed. We are pledging an initial €100,000 to support their efforts and to ensure that more survivors are reached in these crucial days immediately following the earthquake.
Oxfam has scaled up its emergency response, saying that Nepal is running out of food, water and medicines.
There are 1.3m people in the five worst-hit areas in urgent need of aid, said Oxfam, which added it will be scaling up its initial emergency response to reach 350,000 people.
Cecilia Keizer, Oxfam’s country director in Nepal, said:
We are managing to reach out to people in Kathmandu, but it is extremely difficult to provide support on a larger scale to the most affected areas. At the moment, all the death count reports are coming from Kathmandu Valley. Sadly, I fear that this is only the beginning.
Other Irish NGOs helping include Disaster Tech Lab, which is sending a team to carry out a “damage and needs assessment”.
It provides what it describes as ‘emergency communication services’, and is working with its sister organisation Disaster Medics, which is sending a team of dedicated medics to the area.
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