KATHMANDU: Rescuers pulled a teenage boy and a woman in her thirties alive from the rubble of Nepal’s earthquake on Thursday, in rare moments of joy five days after a disaster which killed nearly 6,000 people.

The rescue of 15-year-old Pemba Tamang, who said that he stayed alive by eating ghee, was hailed as a miracle and greeted with cheers from crowds of bystanders who massed to watch the drama unfold at a ruined guesthouse in Kathmandu.

Also read: Rain hampers Nepal rescue teams, death toll nears 5,500

Just hours later, a team pulled a kitchen worker in her thirties named Krishna Devi Khadka from the rubble of another hotel just streets away, to loud cheers from the multinational team of rescuers who had worked into the night to save her.

Caked in dust, Pemba was fitted with a neck brace and hooked up to an intravenous drip before being lifted onto a stretcher and then raced to a field hospital where he was found to have only minor cuts and bruises.

“I never thought I would make it out alive,” the teenager said at the Israeli military-run facility where he was being kept for observation.

Pemba, who worked at the guesthouse as a bellboy, said he was eating lunch near the reception when the ground started shaking. “I tried to run but... something fell on my head and I lost consciousness — I’ve no idea for how long,” he said.

“When I came round, I was trapped under the debris and there was total darkness,” he added. “I heard other people’s voices screaming out for help around me... but I felt helpless.”

Asked if he had had anything to eat while he was trapped, Pemba said he had come across a jar of ghee (clarified butter) in the dark. “I don’t know where it came from,” he added.

The recovery of another teenager’s body from the same area underlined how the prospects of finding further survivors of Saturday’s 7.8-magnitude quake were becoming more remote.

Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2015

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