SPAIN will send an aircraft to Nepal this morning (Monday) with 30 tonnes of aid including food and medication for survivors of the devastating earthquake which shook the country on Saturday.
UNICEF, Oxfam, Save the Children, Plan Internacional and the Red Cross are working round the clock and calling for more aid parcels and human resources.
Already, over 3,200 have been confirmed dead and over 6,000 injured.
Two Spanish mountaineers, from Asturias and Navarra survived a huge avalanche caused by the quake whilst climbing Everest, and have described how they heard the mountain 'go crunch'.
They are trapped at Base Camp and helping with rescue operations, saying around eight other climbers – mainly of Chinese and Japanese nationality – have been killed.
Spanish authorities are attempting to contact all citizens known to be in Nepal at the time of the quake, including tourists and expatriates.
A total of 70 Spaniards are waiting for an Armed Forces plane to fly them home – over 50 have spent the night at Kathmandu airport and 15 of them in a hotel owned by the honorary Consul, Ambice Shresta.
So far, Spain's foreign office has managed to make contact with 332 citizens in Nepal, but another 162 have not been traced, of whom 117 are tourists.
Minister of foreign affairs José Manuel García Margallo was already in the wider area at the time, having flown to Delhi, India, some 800 kilometres west of the Nepalese capital to meet with business owners and politicians in the subcontinent.
But his agenda was scrapped and he is now involved in a race against time to locate the Spaniards who remain out of touch.
Such is the destruction in central Nepal that the plane carrying Margallo had to circle above Kathmandu’s airspace for over an hour until permission could be given to land, and the airport is said to be full to bursting as Nepalese people who have lost everything have sought refuge inside the terminal.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com