Nepal earthquake: 'The ground under our feet was rolling'
DART member with New Brunswick roots shares her Nepal earthquake experiences
Royal Canadian Navy Lt.-Cmdr. Kelly Williamson is the spokesperson for DART - Canada's Disaster Assistance Response Team. The team is in Nepal following the devastating earthquake of April 25.
Williamson, who's married to New Brunswick Southwest MP John Williamson, is far from the serenity of St. Andrew's-by-the-Sea. She spoke with Information Morning Fredericton Wednesday about enduring aftershocks and another earthquake since arriving in Kathmandu last month. The most recent quake struck Tuesday.
The first earthquake measured 7.8 on the Richter scale and Tuesday's measured. 7.3. More than 8,200 people are reported to have been killed in the earthquakes and over 19,000 injured.
The radio tower which is made of metal was swaying back and forth like rubber- LtCdr Williamson
When the second quake struck this past week Williamson says she had just sat down at her laptop computer after stopping for lunch.
"We noticed the ground start to shake and at first we thought it was just going to be a small aftershock like some of the others we've experienced over the course of the past two weeks. The power went off and it started to shake a lot more violently than were used to so we headed outside and could see that it was quite a significant quake and not a simple aftershock," she said.
Williamson said as people also streamed out of nearby buildings it quickly became clear it was far more than an aftershock.
"There's an office building across from us that has a radio tower and the radio tower which is made of metal was swaying back and forth like rubber," Williamson said.
The ground under our feet was rolling, like as if you were aboard a ship in heavy seas.- LtCdr Williamson
"When you looked up all the birds were in the sky and the trees were shaking. It felt like the ground under our feet was rolling, like as if you were aboard a ship in heavy seas. I think a lot of us were pretty intimidated."
Williamson said once everyone was accounted for from headquarters, thoughts turned to other colleagues spread across the country.
Engineers from 5th Division Support Base Gagetown were undertaking rubble removal and road-opening operations from two forward operating bases, 70 kilometres from Kathmandu and in a village about 15 kilometres north of the Nepalese capital.
"Happily we were able to establish communications with everyone and found out everybody was safe but there were definitely some tense moments," said Williamson.
In the hours that followed, Williamson made sure members of DART were given a chance to reach loved ones back home by text, phone and email to reassure them they were safe. She sent a few messages of her own back to her husband in New Brunswick and to her family in Ontario.
She says the hours that followed were some of the most tense but also the most uplifting for Canada's soldiers, witnessing the resilience of the Nepalese people.
"After the earthquake I was standing in a parking lot speaking to a local Nepalese fellow who's been working quite closely with our disaster assistance response team over the past few weeks and I asked him if his family was safe. He said 'Oh yes!' in a most cheerful way,'Oh yes, my family are safe, our home was destroyed in the first earthquake so my family was in the field in front of our house so they were totally safe' and he said it, and he was so happy and it just made me realize how lucky we have it in Canada," Williamson recalled.
"Here was a man who had totally lost everything but he had his family and he knew what was important to him and I think that's really the most touching thing about being here in Nepal. It puts life in context."
Another experience that has stayed with her is the memory of a visit to a camp for displaced persons soon after the earthquake last Tuesday.
The camp was filled with children who told her their parents had gone searching for new places to live after their own homes had been destroyed. A couple of grandmothers were looking after them. The children told her the owner of the land where the camp was located had warned everyone he planned to evict them as soon as he could.
Williamson paused, and became quiet while she recalled the emotions of that moment.
"And so, for me I can't fathom, having a child who's just lost their home and now they're being evicted. So there are definitely some interesting experiences to help you take stock of your life."
Despite those moments and the worry of life in an area where earthquakes have occurred, Williamson says the experience has been more than worthwhile for herself and members of the DART team.
"It's just enhancing Canada's reputation as a country that goes out and does good. I think that's the big national payback, and I think you know at the individual soldier level, there are really a million things. People learn how to do their job under some the most stressful conditions and it really teaches individual soldiers how to be ingenious and how to solve problems and get the job done. "
And she's constantly impressed by the strength of the Nepalese people they're helping.
"They're rebuilding, they're digging out, and they're getting on with their lives."
Normally the DART team is deployed for between 40 to 60 days.
Williamson says the team hasn't been given a date to leave Nepal but she expects it will be within that time period.