WATCH: The magnitude 7.8 tremor hit a heavily populated area near the capital of Kathmandu, causing catastrophic damage. Nearly 2,500 people are confirmed dead in four countries and that number is expected to climb. Canada is preparing to send our disaster response team. Jill Bennett has more.
Members of Vancouver’s Nepalese community are closely following the aftermath of the Nepal earthquake and working on ways to help rebuild the South Asian nation.
“We haven’t slept the whole night,” said Abi Sharma, co-owner of Vancouver’s Cafe Kathmandu, on Saturday. “We are first-generation immigrants from Nepal…I have 50 or so immediate family members, and I’m the only one who is here.”
There are around 2,000 people from Nepal living in British Columbia, and Sharma said many of them are planning local fundraising efforts.
“We do fundraising all the time,” he said. “There’s abject poverty…but in a situation like this, the community definitely rallies around.”
READ MORE: How you can help the victims of Nepal’s earthquake
Dr. Bishnu Pandey, a native of Nepal who teaches structural engineering at BCIT, is grateful that none of his immediate family members were injured in the quake, but says it’s difficult for him to see much of his country reduced to rubble.
“Being a Nepalese who grew up there and having studied buildings, it’s so devastating,” says Pandey.
WATCH: Bishnu Pandey, a BCIT instructor who was born in Nepal, talks about the devastating earthquake in his native country.
He said he hopes to return to Nepal later this year to help in rebuilding efforts.
“It’s an opportunity to build better,” says Pandey. “There’s a big opportunity for us to work together and put knowledge from around the world into Nepal and make it stronger and better.”
READ MORE: 5 facts about the Nepal earthquake
The earthquake was the worst to hit Nepal in more than 80 years. It destroyed swaths of the oldest neighbourhoods of Kathmandu and was strong enough to be felt all across parts of India, Bangladesh, China’s region of Tibet and Pakistan.
-with files from Justin McElroy and Associated Press
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