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Manmeet Singh Gill
Tribune News Service
Amritsar, April 27
Eight members of an Amritsar-based family returned from Kathmandu with horrific tales yesterday.
In Nepal to pay obeisance at Pashupatinath temple, the family, which stays in Gurbaksh Nagar area of the city, witnessed the devastation caused by the high-magnitude earthquake on Saturday.
Krishan Lal, the eldest member of the family, said: “We had just come out of the temple after finishing our prayers when the earthquake struck around 11:45am. A portion of the temple immediately fell to the ground.”
The family members said it was a horrifying experience as they waited till 4:30pm for the frequent tremors to stop. “The tremors were felt every 10-15 minutes. It must have been like this for 25 times before the situation returned to normalcy,” said Santosh Rani, another member of the family.
Later, they found their way to nearby Guru Nanak Satsang Gurdwara where they were provided food and shelter. “The Sikh priest gave us rice and a place to stay. He allowed us to stay for as long as we wanted and offered to arrange money for our way back to Punjab,” Lal said.
The next morning (April 26) Rani received an SMS from a relative that IAF planes had been deployed for rescue operation. “The gurdwara arranged a taxi for us up to the airport. As all could not accommodate in one taxi, one of the local residents accompanied us on motorcycle,” Rani said.
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