When the first Red Crescent disaster response team reached the site of Nura village, they were greeted with scenes of desolation and despair. A strong earthquake of 6.6 on the Richter scale had levelled the village in the evening of 5 October, leaving 75 people dead, and at least 90 injured.
“When we arrived in the village of Nura I saw something that made me shudder. The roofs of homes were just lying on the ground in the streets as if the walls had been swallowed up by the earth, and it seemed that everyone around me was crying.” Lena Pavlyuk, a member of the Red Crescent Society of Kyrgyzstan (RCSK) disaster response team, recalls the first minutes of their arrival in the village of Nura, only hours after a strong earthquake of 6.6 on the Richter scale struck the region in the evening of 5 October.
Nura is situated in the Osh district of Kyrgyzstan. It is a remote village where sheep breeders have been living for centuries, grazing their herds in the mountain pastures. The devastating earthquake left 75 people dead, at least 90 injured, and destroyed almost all the homes of Nura’s 900 inhabitants, burying their possessions under the rubble. “Almost every family lost a loved one. Out of 75 people killed, 31 are children,” Lena notes.
For the rest of the story, please visit the IFRC website.
Filed under: Disaster, International, Press Tagged: | earthquake, eyewitness account, kyrgyzstan, Red Cross
