Nepali quake victim, found after 80-hour ordeal, laments his rescue

Friday, 1 May 2015 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Rishi Khanal, 28, who was pulled out from a collapsed residential building following Saturday’s earthquake, speaks to a security guard at a hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal, April 29, 2015. REUTERS Reuters: Nepali farmer Rishi Ram Khanal was looking forward to leaving Nepal for Dubai, where a $ 220-a-month job as a cleaner at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant promised him the chance to pull his young family out of a life of poverty. Those hopes were dashed on Saturday when the 7.8 magnitude quake struck. Khanal found himself buried under the debris of a five-storey Kathmandu guest house, pinned to the ground by fallen rubble and forced to drink his own urine, as he shouted for help and waited for more than three days to be rescued. Thousands were killed when the earthquake brought down buildings and triggered avalanches and landslides. Khanal, 26, was rescued after being buried for about 80 hours. But on Thursday, as he recuperated at Tribhuvan University’s teaching hospital after doctors amputated his leg, Khanal said it would have been better if had died. “What will I do for the rest of my life? My chance to work in Dubai is gone and I cannot even work as a farmer,” Khanal said in an interview from his hospital bed. “I don’t even have the money to buy a wheelchair now. How will I spend the rest of life and support my family?” As rescue crews dug through the rubble and hopes of finding more people alive faded, millions of survivors of Nepal’s worst disaster in 81 years are faced with the same question. They have to deal with the loss of friends and family and rebuild their lives in a poor and devastated country.