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Kathmandu, A man pulled from the rubble of a collapsed hotel by a French rescue team more than three days after the deadly Nepal earthquake says he was forced to drink his own urine to survive.
Rishi Khanal, 27, had just finished lunch at a hotel in Kathmandu and had gone up to the second floor when everything suddenly started to move and fall apart. He was struck by falling masonry and trapped with his foot crushed under rubble.
“I had some hope but by yesterday (Tuesday) I’d given up. My nails went all white and my lips cracked … I was sure no one was coming for me. I was certain I was going to die,” he said from his hospital bed, with his family surrounding him.
The stench of the dead surrounded and assailed him, but he kept pummeling the rubble around him, eventually catching the attention of a French rescue team that extracted him after an operation lasting many hours.
By the time he was pulled out, he had been trapped in what could have become his tomb for 82 hours.
“There was no sound going out, or coming in. I kept banging against the rubble and finally someone responded and came to help. I hadn’t eaten or had anything to drink so I drank my own urine.”
It was not clear if he was a hotel employee or a guest.
“It feels good. I am thankful,” he said. He was taken away for surgery before more details could be obtained.
Over 5,000 are known to have died and over 8,000 injured in the earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale: a large majority of these were from Nepal, although deaths were also reported from India and Tibet.
