The only person who survived the disaster from her husband’s family was her father-in-law. But Bishnumaya has not told this to her husband, who left for Malaysia to work nearly a month ago. She doesn’t know how to break the news to her husband who, she says, has a weak heart.

“If I tell him, he will collapse for sure,” says Bishnumaya. She is well aware that her husband will have to face the news, but at the same time she is also concerned about his well-being. “Besides,” she says, “he is already troubled because he was deceived by his agent in Nepal.”

Bishnumaya’s husband had applied for the job of a construction worker, but he was put to a different line of work when he landed in Malaysia and the pay was half of what was promised by his agent.

“He had spent Rs 200,000 to go to Malaysia.  The money had to be borrowed, of course,” says Bishnumaya. When she last talked with her husband on phone a week ago, she says, he was upset because he had been cheated.

“First he was conned by his agent and now he has lost 11 of his family members. Moreover, there is a pressure to clear the debt,” says Bishnumaya.

Sindhupalchok was one of the worst-hit districts where, according to the available data at the Home Ministry, 3,372 people were killed and 63,885 houses were destroyed.

Bishnumaya and her children, too, have been affected by the Great Earthquake as they were compelled to leave their rented room in Gongabu because the uilding was severely damaged.

The mother and her two young children are currently taking shelter at a futsal pitch in Pepsikola along with many other families, as aftershocks of the 7.9 magnitude quake continue to rattle the country.  

Bishnumaya says the 7.3 magnitude aftershock of May 12 knocked down the building that she and her children had been living in.

“We can’t return to village because the situation there is even worse. “ she says.