A week after a devastating earthquake leveled many areas of Nepal, the U.S. military is sending up to 500 troops, plus aircraft and equipment, to help deliver supplies that has been stuck at the tiny country’s main airport.
The supplies have been pouring in from around the world but has been slow to reach victims in Katmandu, the capital, as well as smaller towns and villages.
The magnitude 7.8 quake that struck April 25 killed more than 6,250 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless, many stranded in remote areas, some of which have yet to receive help.
The death toll is expected to climb even as search-and-rescue operations begin to wind down this week, a Nepal army official said.
The expanded U.S. military involvement is aimed at relieving the backlog of supplies that has piled up at Katmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport and bringing relief shipments to distribution points across the country, officials said.
Among the first U.S. aircraft to arrive, perhaps as early as Sunday, will be four vertical-takeoff Osprey aircraft that will be joined by Army Chinook helicopters and C-130 cargo planes, said Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Paul Kennedy, commander of the operation.
U.S. forces will also bring forklifts to better manage the shipments at the airport, which has only one runway and has been severely congested in the week since the quake.
Already, 25 U.S. service members have established an operations center in a second-story yoga studio on U.S. Embassy-owned grounds in central Katmandu. Military personnel will be housed in tents and at forward staging bases around the country. Some of those sites are operated by the Nepalese military, which has long had close ties to U.S. forces.
“This wasn’t an unknown that this earthquake would happen. We’ve been preparing for it and planning for it,” said Bill Berger, head of disaster response for the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is leading the American effort.
U.S. aircraft are not expected to deliver goods directly to towns or villages but instead will take them to distribution points where Nepalese authorities and international aid agencies will take charge.
The operation has added urgency because of the coming monsoon season, when remote areas become even less accessible, said Berger, who has worked in Nepal for 18 years.
Also among U.S. personnel being deployed are Air Force airfield specialists who will help local air traffic control staff.
Air Force Lt. Col. Glenn Rineheart commands the Guam-based 36th Mobility Response Squadron that will be speeding the off-loading of aid at the airport.
“The question is how do we get the aid to the people who need it the most? There’s a lot of cargo that’s just being taken off the plane and it starts piling up,” said Rineheart.
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