Bill Axinn briefs ISR on Nepal Earthquake and colleagues disaster relief efforts. Image credit: Michael McIntyre
After surviving the massive earthquake, researchers and staff of the University of Michigan in Nepal are providing tents, food and other aid to hard-to-reach communities near the epicenter. Delivering the supplies involves a six-hour drive on a road that eventually ends, said Dirgha Ghimire, associate professor at the U-M Institute for Social Research. "We trek up with the relief packages for another three to five hours depending on the weather," Ghimire said during a Skype call Thursday with his colleagues in Ann Arbor. The relief packages include a tent that sleeps five along with lentils, salt, sugar, instant noodles and flattened rice - cooked, dry flakes of rice popular across South Asia. The supplies are delivered to hard-hit areas in Gorkha and Lanjung districts, just north of the epicenter. Two weeks ago, Ghimire went to Chitwan district in northwestern Nepal to continue several research projects and conduct a workshop on survey methods at the Institute for Social and Environmental Research, an ISR partnership. Several other universities and institutes vacated Nepal after the earthquake.
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