'Only love remains'

The earthquake in Nepal

A message from Kevin Hester

photo - Kevin Hester

via Facebook

Thank you everyone for the amazing outpouring of concern and love in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Nepal where the confirmed death toll has now climbed into the thousands.

Fate can be a brutal judge, jury and executioner and we never know when it will come for us or those we love.

30 yrs after my first visit I returned to Nepal recently and had another amazing journey around the top of the world and became re-acquainted with the unique and wonderful people of Nepal.The people we met via Ace the Himalaya to date seem to be physically ok but their entire lives have been thrown into chaos with Madan Kandel losing his home in the village where he comes from and Prem K Khatry's last post to date is that he was " outside his home looking for a safe place to spend the night"

The country has now been devastated both physically and physiologically and those of us with experience of the terrible consequences of the Christchurch earthquake here in NZ will know that the scars of this event will never completely heal as having the earth shake beneath your feet is a very unsettling phenomenon.

I commented a lot during the trip about the amount of poverty in the country and how the infrastructure was stretched to breaking point in a city that had grown exponentially over the 30 years since I had first started visiting.

That infrastructure has now been devastated and the population of Kathmandu face an enormous challenge and will need our help.

As most of you will be aware I follow closely the unfolding ecological collapse of our biosphere as a result of anthropogenic climate change and myself and others believe we are staring down the barrel of what we have come to call ‪#‎Thegreatunraveling‬.

What you see this morning unfolding in Nepal is coming to us all in the not too distant future and vastly sooner than most people would believe.

photo - Kevin Hester

Today in Kathmandu the power and water will not be flowing, many of the streets will be blocked with rubble, the underground services like water and sewerage will be destroyed and the emergency services,already spartan will be stretched well beyond their limited capacity and the suffering will be immeasurable.

Oxfam, Medecins sans Frontiers and other aid organisations are mounting relief campaigns and are seeking our help and I ask that if you can that you choose one and do / give whatever you can.

I am at home at Rakino Island safe and sound but by the 'skin of my teeth' as I could obviously be lying beneath a pile of rubble in Kathmandu, such is the good luck I have experienced all of my life.

Please forgive me if I don't respond to all of your p.m's and posts on my wall as I am feeling a little overwhelmed in many ways.

In a time like this " Only love remains".

The Kathmandu valley - photo - Kevin Hester