India has won high praise for its ongoing relief and rescue operations in quake-ravaged Nepal. Indian forces evacuated nearly 200 foreign nationals from 15 countries. Besides IAF rescuers, New Delhi also despatched other professional relief workers and even the Army’s Gorkha soldiers to help with the work. The Indian Army has some 38,000 Gorkha soldiers in its fold. IAF helicopters had rescued 19 mountaineers from Nepal’s Lukla region and more than 3,000 were rescued by land.
The death toll is expected to touch 10,000, according to official forecasts. There is an acute shortage of food, water, electricity and medicines, as fear of another quake has kept tens of thousands of people out in the open. The US lauded India’s role in Nepal, saying the country ‘has demonstrated its global leadership in recent weeks, first in Yemen and now in Nepal’. The US Ambassador to India Richard Verma said, “We are grateful; we are impressed; we are inspired.”
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