The Great Quake 2015 | our response to it

Raj @ Yellow House sourcing supplies
for Sindupalchowk | Day 5

The great quake hit us badly, with first news coming that Naresh (our accounts colleague) losing his mother and sister when the house collapsed, and that we lost Paul in a landslide near Ghopte in the Langtang Region.

While parts of the team scrambled to get evacuations organised and set up emergency communications, a part of socialtours was already working in emergency rescue, which quite quickly turned into relief distribution, and has now stabilised into reconstruction & recovery.

We quickly mobilised our charity Karma Foundation, set it up ready to receive supplies - over 3000 tarps, over 100 filters, and over 1000 household packages of rice, lentils, salt... and over 60 solar lamps and chargers - to just name a few, and set it ready for distribution. We distributed it all, and are now working on quality distributions.

We also quickly helped some of the staff recovery - Binita from Karma Coffee had a village in Nuwakot badly hit - and we immediately sent supplies there. Later we organised and sent supplies to Ashmita's village too in Sindupalchowk. Along with Namaste Nepal, we also went quickly into the field in Sindupalchowk where we have a long standing partnership, and started relief and recovery efforts.

Friends and well-wishers from all around the world also quickly started raising funds, of which we have close to 15,000 USD now, and are making plans for disbursement, and recovery strategies that we will fund. The reports will come out on the Karma Foundation website

We had also by this time mobilised a small team to start calling everyone we knew and were related to in the industry, to find out how they were and assess the damage, and asking them how we could help. We were relieved to find that only a few bad cases were there, though almost everyone had lost homes, if they were in the affected area.

EarthQuake & Aftershocks | focussed on a limited area in Nepal

We then initiated a tourism recovery plan - got together like minded professionals in the industry and started recovery strategies - We announced we are back in business, have started assessing the assets that we have, keeping our website uptodate with latest information, and talking to all our agents to keep them informed and work together.

Read about whats happening on this front on this facebook group here

This is where we are! We recognise that this is a unique situation and requires creative unique responses, and we really appreciate all support we have received - monetary, moral and technical.

So far, we are analysing what hits we will have to take this year as a business. Immediate cancellations have been huge to be frank, but we also have very encouraging stories, with group reaffirming their conviction to come to Nepal, as thats the best recovery strategy.

We are committed to the safety of our clients and our assets, and have made a strong commitement to be honest in our communications, as that is the best strategy we have, and which is in line with our principles.

We are fully working and are keeping uptodate information on whats happening in the country. Talk to us, we are interested to hear your concerns regarding travel to Nepal, and will ensure that you get the most accurate and reliable information to help make travel decisions.

socialtours team | open for business since day 4