NATION/WORLD
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
More than 4,000 killed in Nepal quake
By TODD PITMAN
Associated Press
KATHMANDU, Nepal — For hours
after Nepal was shaken by one of the
most intense earthquakes here in nearly
a century, 12-year-old Neha Chumda
screamed for help.
She had been inside her family’s
four-story villa in Kathmandu when the
tremor struck unexpectedly Saturday.
And in the life-or-death seconds that
followed — when her home swayed at
its walls began cracking apart — she
and 11 members of her family rushed to
get outside.
They all made it — except Neha,
who was pinned in a room between
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collapsed onto of each other.
“She was crying for so long, we tried
to help her,” Transport Minister Tek
Bahadur Garung said of the girl, who is
the daughter of one of his cousins.
The cries turned faint, then ceased
by the time Nepalese army troops
and security forces began trying to
break through the front of the house
to pry Neha out at 4 p.m. Saturday.
Then for a day and a half the soldiers
used hammers, crowbars, shovels and
a generator-powered saw and small
jack-hammer to tear open the front of
the house, then bust through the ceiling
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By Monday morning, they could see
Neha’s lifeless body curled up, covered
in dust, a single elbow poking out above
them. Then, at 10 a.m. — 42 hours after
the rescue operation began — they
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gently into a rainbow colored blanket
that served as a makeshift stretcher,
then placed her on the grassy ground
outside, where four members of her
AP Photo/Wally Santana
Rescue teams carry a body dug out of the collapsed Sitapyla church Mon-
day in Kathmandu, Nepal. A strong earthquake shook Nepal’s capital and
the densely populated Kathmandu Valley on Saturday.
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tears.
“We have manpower. But we don’t
have nearly enough equipment to do the
job,” Garung said of his government’s
rescue efforts. “We need help from
every country that will give it. We
need bulldozers, cranes, scaffolding,
machinery.”
Speaking outside the girl’s home
in a black tracksuit, with dozens of
distraught residents looking on, Garung
said: “There are a lot of dead bodies
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out. We can’t do it with crowbars”
alone.
The estimated death toll from
Nepal’s earthquake soared past 4,000,
and could go much higher if it turns
out that vulnerable mountain villages
— where information is still scarce and
rescue workers are still struggling to
reach — were hit hard.
The catastrophe has overwhelmed
Nepal’s government. Garung said
the Cabinet was meeting daily, but
“we don’t know what to do in such a
situation ... this is very hard. It’s a big
problem. It’s a mess.”
Although the vast majority of Kath-
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actually withstood the quake and still
stand, many have been damaged and it’s
unclear whether they are still safe. On
the four-lane road that runs up a hill near
Neha’s home, most buildings looked
undamaged. But half a dozen were in
ruins and several multi-story apartment
blocks were tilting precariously, one at a
60-degree angle.
Riot, looting prompt state of emergency in Baltimore
BALTIMORE
(AP)
— Rioters plunged part
of Baltimore into chaos
Monday, torching a phar-
macy, setting police cars
ablaze and throwing bricks at
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mourned the man who died
from a severe spinal injury he
suffered in police custody.
The governor declared
a state of emergency and
called in the National Guard
to restore order. A weeklong,
daily curfew was imposed
beginning Tuesday from 10
p.m. to 5 a.m., the mayor said.
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and some two dozen people
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remained hospitalized, police
said.
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and wielding shields occa-
sionally used pepper spray to
keep the rioters back. For the
most part, though, they relied
on line formations to keep
protesters at bay.
Monday’s riot was the
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mysterious death of Freddie
Gray, whose fatal encounter
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national debate over police
use of force, especially when
black suspects are involved.
Gray was African-Amer-
ican. Police have declined
to specify the races of the
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arrest, all of whom have been
AP Photo/Patrick Semansky
A demonstrator raises his fist as police stand in forma-
tion as a store burns, Monday during unrest following
the funeral of Freddie Gray in Baltimore.
suspended with pay while
they are under investigation.
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were constantly thwarted as
they tried to restore calm.
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out a blaze at a CVS store
were hindered by someone
who sliced holes in a hose
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spraying water all over the
street and nearby buildings.
The smell of burned
rubber wafted in the air in one
neighborhood where youths
were looting a liquor store.
Police stood still nearby as
people drank looted alcohol.
Glass and trash littered the
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scattered about. One person
from a church tried to shout
something from a megaphone
as two cars burned.
“Too many people have
spent generations building up
this city for it to be destroyed
by thugs, who in a very
senseless way, are trying
to tear down what so many
have fought for, tearing down
businesses, tearing down
and destroying property,
things that we know will
impact our community for
years,” said Mayor Stephanie
Rawlings-Blake, a lifelong
resident of the city.
Gray’s
family
was
shocked by the violence and
was lying low; instead, they
hoped to organize a peace
march later in the week,
said family attorney Billy
Murphy. He said they did not
know the riot was going to
happen and urged calm.
“They don’t want this
movement nationally to be
marred by violence,” he said.
“It makes no sense.”
Police urged parents to
locate their children and bring
them home. Many of those
on the streets appeared to be
African-American youths,
wearing backpacks and khaki
pants that are a part of many
public school uniforms.
The riot broke out just
as high school let out, and
at a key city bus depot
for student commuters
around Mondawmin Mall,
a shopping area northwest
of downtown Baltimore. It
shifted about a mile away
later to the heart of an older
shopping district and near
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police. Both commercial
areas are in African-Amer-
ican neighborhoods.
John
Sm ith
07 /08/7 2
05/02/12
Emily Ann Smith
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Historic Supreme Court arguments:
Should gay marriage be law of the land?
WASHINGTON (AP) — Tuesday is a potential
watershed moment for America’s gay and lesbian
couples. After rapid changes that have made same-sex
marriage legal in all but 14 states, the Supreme Court
will hear arguments over whether it should be the law of
the land.
All eyes will be
on the justices for
any signals that they
are prepared to rule
that the Constitution
forbids states from
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On the sidewalk outside, people have been waiting
in line since Friday for prized seats for the historic
arguments.
The cases before the court come from Kentucky,
Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee, all of which had their
marriage bans upheld by the federal appeals court in
Cincinnati in November. That is the only federal appeals
court that has ruled in favor of the states since the
Supreme Court in 2013 struck down part of the federal
anti-gay marriage law.
7KH¿UVWVWDWHWRDOORZJD\DQGOHVELDQFRXSOHVWR
marry was Massachusetts, in 2004. Even as recently as
October, barely a third of the states permitted it. Now,
same-sex couples can marry in 36 states and the District
of Columbia, a dramatic change in the law that has been
accompanied by an equally fast shift in public opinion.
Now that everyone else has weighed in through
mountains of legal briefs, the justices get to say, or
DWOHDVWKLQWZKDWWKH\ZLOOGHFLGH2Q7XHVGD\¿YH
lawyers will present arguments over 2½ hours to help
the court conclude whether, on this question, the 14
remaining states must join the rest of the country.
Obama administration seeks to
advance Iran deal
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration
moved on two fronts Monday to advance its nuclear
diplomacy with Iran, with talks between top U.S. and
Iranian diplomats and an aggressive effort to sell the
emerging deal to skeptical American lawmakers and
constituencies.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif met at the
residence of Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations in
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powers and Iran sealed a framework agreement that
would limit Iran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon.
They now have little more than two months to meet
their own June 30 deadline for a comprehensive accord.
Neither man spoke to reporters as the meeting got
underway, but earlier Kerry told a U.N. conference
on nuclear non-proliferation that a deal would make
the world a safer place. “I want you to know the hard
work is far from over and some key issues remain
unresolved,” he said. “But we are, in fact, closer than
ever to the good comprehensive deal that we have been
seeking. And if we can get there, the entire world will be
safer.”
In Washington, lead U.S. negotiator Wendy Sherman
told a conference of reform Jews that diplomatic
collapse would leave Iran perilously close to nuclear
weapons capacity. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said
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what the U.S. has outlined thus far.
All the activity was taking place before the Senate
begins debate Tuesday over empowering Congress to
review and possibly reject any nuclear pact. Republican
presidential candidates are lining up to oppose any
deal with a government the U.S. considers the world’s
leading state sponsor of terrorism and to show their
support for Israel.
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