AN EAST Lancashire doctor has spoken of the terrifying moment he watched a makeshift hospital collapse after the second devastating earthquake in Nepal.
Dr Irfan Zafar, who has worked at Roe Lee Surgery in Blackburn for 15 years, described the disaster as ‘the longest 30 seconds of my life’.
He and other volunteers, including three more East Lancashire men, helped treat almost 250 patients in the village of Dhulikhel after the first quake in April.
Describing the ground moving under his feet, Dr Zafar, who also works at Burnley General Hospital, said: “I don’t know how we coped. I can’t even begin to describe it.
“I kept jumping up and down because it was impossible to stand still. We were incredibly lucky that no-one in our building was killed.
“I had only gone outside to stretch my back. The hospital was set up in a shop and I was basically using two bags of rice as a chair because there were no seats.”
Dr Zafar, who went on the aid mission with medical charity Healing Hands last Saturday, said villagers and his team had to walk for five hours in search of food in the aftermath of the second quake on Tuesday.
The 49-year-old father-of-three said: “We were 8,000ft above sea level and all our medical supplies were either destroyed, or donated to other hospitals.
“It was absolute panic. People were screaming, running, crying. The buildings were just ruined.”
Trip organiser, Abdul Adam, from Preston’s Ummah Global Relief, said: “I have never seen anything like the scenes in Nepal after the earthquake, it is absolute devastation.
“I never thought I would see anything to compare with Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines but this is horrendous.
“After the second earthquake it was just chaos and panic. Buildings were crumbling all around us.
“We’re launching another appeal and we hope to go back either next week or the week after.”
Dr Zafar said he and his colleagues – Mr Adam, from Blackburn, Dr Zaheer Hussain, a Blackburn pharmacist, Rizwan Ali, from Nelson, and Dr Mohammed Shafique, from Stockton-on-Tees – have all returned to the UK ahead of schedule after the second earthquake.
The GP added: “The Nepalese people are unbelievable. The first thing they do is offer you food and drink, even though they have nothing.
“It’s too soon to talk about going back but I would never say never.”
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