After a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck central Nepal at 11:56 a.m. on April 25, it was headline news worldwide. The international media rushed to Kathmandu on flights crammed with rescue teams. Military cargo planes from China, India, the U.S., Japan and dozens of other countries crowded into Kathmandu’s toy airport with relief supplies. After a few days, the international media moved on, as they usually do. But Nepal’s emergency was not over, the natural disaster was soon replaced by a political crisis.
For more than two months now, landlocked Nepal’s border checkpoints with India have been virtually blocked, most of them by Indian border police and customs officials, and one by activists from Nepal’s plains-dwelling Madhesi community, who are unhappy with the country’s new constitution. New Delhi officially denies that it is blocking the border, and a limited number of cargo trucks are getting through, but nonetheless imports of petroleum, medicines and earthquake relief material have been choked. A country of 28 million people has ground to a halt, schools are closing, hospitals are turning away patients, public transport is limited, industries have shut, tourist arrivals have plummeted.
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