Emergency Response and Recovery in Nepal

Samundra Regmi is 11. His goat is three days old. They live in Nepal’s Gorkha District, one of the most remote, hard-to-reach places in the world. It was also one of the regions hardest hit by the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that tore the country apart in April 2015. When the dust cleared, 8,669 people had died and more than 500,000 homes were destroyed.

Samundra is proud of his goat, but he might not get to keep it. Like so many who lost everything in the disaster, his family must consider every item they still own to decide what can be sold for food money. It hit just a few weeks before monsoon season, leaving no time to recover before rains washed away what was left of many farms, and landslides complicated transport even further.

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Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and its partner, Caritas Nepal, were on the scene immediately—the first organizations delivering emergency aid to this isolated area. To date, CRS has delivered lifesaving emergency support to 171,620 people. Supplies include food, shelter materials, water treatment and hygiene kits and cold-weather items like blankets that helped people survive the below-freezing winter. Now more than a year since the disaster, CRS remains on the ground, helping families lay a foundation for full recovery, with an emphasis on strengthened markets and safe shelter.