Anger and Anxiety Mount in Earthquake-Hit Nepal as Stranded Indians Struggle to Get Home

After three days of agonizing wait, tempers were running high as thousands of stranded Indians jostled with each other to get on-board one of the 100 buses leaving from quake-hit Nepal, anxious to return home.

Several staging areas have been set up in Kathmandu including a spot opposite Pashupatinath and Kalanki temples, from where Indians can board buses to head back home.

At least five buses, carrying hundreds of Indians, left for Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday morning. Another batch which was also scheduled to leave for Bihar on Tuesday, will now leave a day later.

Delay in departure of Bihar-bound buses led to angry protests at the parking lot opposite the Pashupatinath temple in capital Kathmandu.

"Is Patna not a part of India?" screamed Manish Kumar at a senior Indian official who was guiding people towards departing buses.

He was reassured that either he could wait for buses from Bihar which should arrive by tomorrow morning or could head to Gorakhpur where the Bihar government had organized special trains to Patna.

Some families, however, chose to leave immediately.

For instance Vikas kumar and his family, natives of Motihari district in Bihar, were among those who managed to get onto a bus to Gorakhpur.

Mr Kumar who ran vegetable shop in Kathmandu narrowly escaped when a wall of their house collapsed. Traumatized they have been living on the streets since then, too afraid of the aftershocks to go back home to even to get warm clothes for the children.

"We can face to face with death. We were at home when the earthquake came, and our wall came down and injured my sister. Things were tough, everything has become expensive. Even a bottle of water costs Rs 50 and there were fights over this too," Mr Kumar told NDTV.

Driver Ram Yadav, despite driving through a difficult terrain and across the border, is only happy to help. "I have driven for more than 24 hours but am happy to see that I have been able to help evacuate these stranded people out of here" he said.