Dougie Kay, from Insch, arrived in Nepal in 2015 with the intention of climbing to the base camp of Mount Everest, but was still in Kathmandu City when the earthquake hit. On the two-year anniversary of the disaster, the north-east man looks back at the minute that changed his life.
“On the 17th of April 2015 I arrived in Nepal with the intention of trekking through the Himalayas.
These plans came to an abrupt end at 11:57pm on the 25th. I was on the third floor of my hostel in the centre of Thamel, Kathmandu. My bed started shaking, at first I thought my new room mate and the only other person in the room at the time, Doran Graham from New Zealand was shaking my bed.
I looked around and he was on the far side of the room looking at me a bit worried. He flew past my bed to stand underneath the door frame where I soon followed. As the intensity of the shaking increased I began to hear crashing, shouting and screaming, the screams were like nothing I’ve heard before but soon became a regular sound over the next few weeks.
People were running for their lives. I soon turned and ran down the three stories. Stumbling down the stairs as the building continued to shake. Walls coming close on either side. I got to the bottom and there were people holding on to whatever they could with terrified looks in their eyes.
We all ran outside to the car park as the ground slowly calmed and things fell silent. Just the sounds of some people crying.
It seems that one minute has changed me even to this day… Then those huge aftershocks came. I had no idea what was going on. We decided to walk around Thamel to see if anyone needed help.
We shortly came across a building, completely wiped out. Once a four or five story building, now rubble in one of the large baths found around Kathmandu, where we later found out 40 people lost there lives. We picked through the rubble for hours that afternoon. Pulling out the bodies, forming chains and lifting them out of these deep baths.
There were two survivors I know of. One girl who got pulled out before we arrived and one man who was trapped for a very long time. We left before he got out.. Those following nights still stay in my mind today. After seeing that building collapse so close to ours every aftershock was terrifying.
My ‘earthquake family’ as we call ourselves became very good at guessing the magnitude of the aftershocks. We stayed in the hostel, the staff left to go to the parks to get away from the buildings. After much persuasion they left us the keys and let us stay.
All shops were shut, there was no running water and the power came on only for short periods of time.
The city fell silent in between the tremors. No sound of aircraft or any signs of help, we huddled together at night under candlelight, shared stories and became close friends very quickly.
As the days passed some people left to go to their embassies to find food. Our group got smaller and smaller. And then volunteering opportunities began.
I stayed for almost four months volunteering and returned for an emotional reunion with my earthquake family in 2016. I stayed for five months to continue to volunteer in among some treks to Everest Base Camp, learning to paraglide and biking through the country.
My thoughts are with the beautiful Nepalese people today and my earthquake family who are now spread out all over the world.”