SELINSGROVE – A Susquehanna University professor and some of his students are feeling a personal connection to the tragedy in Nepal, after visiting there last year. Thousands are dead after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck the region.
David Richard, Dean of Arts and Sciences has taken groups of students from SU to Nepal and now is part of an effort to get aid to the hardest hit areas, “We knew it was coming. It really was just a question of how bad it was going to be. It’s a highly earthquake prone area, because you have two giant tectonic plates, India and Asia, crashing into each other. That’s why we have the Himalayas.”
Richard says Nepal’s location makes response and recovery difficult. And he says another short term concern exists, “My concern right now is as the monsoon starts in the next month or so, and the rains pick up, because the sewage system, which was pretty non-existent in some places to begin with anyway, is now is going to overwhelmed by rain, the emergence of water-borne diseases such as Cholera are going to be a serious problem.”
Professor Richard speaks highly of the people in the remote nation and he says an effort is underway to offer whatever assistance they can. A Go Fund Me account has been set up also at www.gofundme.com.