Earthquake in the Himalayas

In April 2015, I.S.A.R. Germany travelled to Nepal with a team of around 60 medics, logisticians, rescue specialists and dog handlers. The region had been shaken by a severe earthquake. A number of tasks awaited our rescue specialists.

It travelled to the city of Gorkha on behalf of the United Nations. However, fewer houses were destroyed there than initially expected. The situation was different in the neighbouring villages. Part of the team searched there for people buried under the rubble. In the meantime, our medics supported the work in the hospital in the town of Gorkha where necessary. It turned out to be a problem that there was no helicopter transport capacity available for flights to remote mountain villages. This made it impossible for the international rescue teams to provide assistance there.

Experts from I.S.A.R. took on additional tasks in consultation with the United Nations Operation Support Centre (OSOCC) in Kathmandu. Mareike Illing from Kleve, for example, supported the OSOCC in coordinating the operations. Three construction consultants had been assigned the task of checking the stability of public buildings in Kathmandu by the UN. "The wide range of tasks during the mission in Nepal shows that I.S.A.R. is well positioned. I.S.A.R. was involved in many areas, from localisation and patient care to operational management at UN level and the deployment of construction experts. We were thus able to make a contribution and help the people in Nepal," says I.S.A.R. President Dr Daniela Lesmeister.

This also included I.S.A.R. organising its own transport capacity to transport relief supplies to Nepal. Several tonnes of equipment were transported to the disaster region in a chartered Antonov 12. At the airport in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu, we were able to hand over the medical equipment to the aid organisation "Pharmacists Without Borders". The equipment was taken to the regions particularly affected by the earthquake. The relief supplies were provided by our partner "action medeor e.V.".