Flight for Survival

AS we go to press, the diminishing intensity and frequency of aftershocks may be hopefully taken to mean that the major geological readjustment in the Koynanagar area in Maharashtra, of which Monday morning's earthquake was part, is complete. The trail of devastation and human suffering left in its wake has yet to be assessed fully. The tally of the dead, now at 180, will rise both because a large number of the over 2,000 injured arc stated to be in a serious condition and because relief squads have yet to pick their way to many outlying villages, difficult to reach in normal times but now made all but inaccessible by crumpled culverts and torn up roads.