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Nepalese living in squalor one year after quake

People still await government housing help
Nepalese living in squalor one year after quake
Published: April 19, 2016 04:41 AM GMT
Updated: April 19, 2016 04:41 AM GMT

A year after an earthquake in Nepal toppled them to the ground, the stones that once formed Sarita Majhi's simple house are stacked neatly in a pile, waiting to be used to once again build a house for the woman and her two small children. For now, Majhi lives in a temporary hut formed from sheets of tin roofing and a sun-bleached tarpaulin.

Majhi is alone waiting on the government's promise to deliver roughly $2,000 per family to start rebuilding.

Within weeks of the April 25 magnitude 7.8 earthquake that killed about 9,000 people, international donors pledged $4.1 billion toward reconstruction, Catholic News Service reported. But political and ethnic feuding paralyzed the government, which was working to finalize a new constitution. As the document finally took shape, Nepalese living along the border with India, unhappy about its content, blockaded fuel and other vital supplies from reaching the mountainous nation. The economy, and any hope of rebuilding in a timely manner, ground almost to a halt.

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