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Tucked in her mother’s lap, two-year-old Sandya Tamang watches other children build blocks, count wooden beads, and tussle over stuffed toys.
It’s Sandya’s first day at the play space created by the Canadian Red Cross for children affected by the Nepal earthquakes.

Shortly before her first child was due, Diki Dolma trekked for days across mountain trails devastated by the Nepal earthquakes to reach the Canadian Red Cross field hospital in Dhunche.

Fortunately, the roads reopened within a week of the earthquake and we were able to begin transporting supplies by truck.  The team moved quickly to set up camp, assist the local medical staff with their workload and begin mobile clinics on foot to reach otherwise inaccessible communities around Dhunche.

Red Cross aid worker Bonnie Kearns, a nurse from Sarnia, Ontario, has been in Nepal for the past several weeks, working in a remote community affected by the earthquake to provide basic health care services.

She describes a close call she experienced on May 12, when a second powerful earthquake struck the country, and how a young local Red Cross volunteer came to offer protection.

As darkness began to settle in Nepal Tuesday night after the second earthquake hit, a newborn baby’s cry restored the spirits of a team of nine Canadian Red Cross aid workers in Khukondole.