DHAKA: With its sewage system badly damaged, carcasses rotting in the rubble and thousands of people sleeping rough, experts say Nepal faces a race against time to ensure a devastating earthquake does not trigger a public health disaster.

More than 5,500 people were killed in Saturday’s quake and relief officials will be desperate to avoid a second tragedy akin to a cholera outbreak traced back to UN Nepalese peacekeepers that devastated Haiti after a quake in 2010.

‘When you’ve got an environment where hygiene is poor and people are drinking water from dubious sources there’s always going to be a risk of water-borne diseases, diarrhoea and respiratory diseases,’ Patrick Fuller, Asia-Pacific spokesman for the International Red Cross, told the media, reports The Straits Times.

In Nepal’s ruined capital Kathmandu, thousands have spent five nights so far camped out in the cold, crammed into tents without access to safe, clean drinking water and flushing toilets, forced to defecate in the open.

BDST: 1624 HRS, APR 30, 2015
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