Vets Beyond Borders Australia

Published 20 Sep 2011

Devastating earthquake hits Sikkim

On September 18 2011, at around 6pm local time, a 6.8-6.9-magnitude earthquake with its epicentre in Sikkim, hit north and east India as well as neighbouring countries including Tibet and Nepal. Many people are known to have lost their lives, with some reports putting the number in the hundreds.

We can happily confirm that all VBB staff and volunteers on the SARAH project are safe. The clinic has not fared too badly and the volunteer vets and local staff will be busy dealing with injured animals. The regular ABC-AR program will re-commence as soon as possible.

The SARAH project is in the midst of the state-wide rabies vaccination campaign and the earthquake will cause significant disruption to this operation. There are many road blockages and considerable areas of damage throughout the state and the priorities of the people in affected areas will now be to care for the injured and repair damaged houses, buildings and infrastructure. Hence, we are likely to have a poor public response to the remainder of the campaign and difficulty reaching many parts of Sikkim. The vaccination campaign had been going very well but it is likely to now be abridged following the earthquake.

For news on the earthquake please see: http://sikkimtimes.com/?p=2070 and http://isikkim.com/ among other sites you will find on search engines.