EIGHT WEXFORD hill-walkers are due home later this week after they endured the terrifying experience of Saturday’s devastating earthquake in Nepal which has so far claimed the lives of more than 3,000 people.
The group, which includes: Catherine Jordan, Mary Nolan, John Nolan, Jimmy Morrissey, Fr. Tom Dalton, Jim McGillicuddy, Ger Colfer and Joan Etchingham, had arrived in Kathmandu just the day before the earthquake. Thankfully, they were able to get to safety and contact home to let family and friends know that they were alright.
They are currently staying in an outdoor park while they wait for their flight home on Wednesday. The group will fly to Turkey before catching a flight back to Ireland on Thursday where a large welcoming crowd of family and friends from Wexford is expected to meet them.
Catherine Jordan’s son Keith told this newspaper he had received a phone call from his mother shortly after the quake had hit but he had not heard about the disaster before she rang.
“It was a good thing really that I hadn’t heard about it before she rang. She was quite shook up on the phone but she said everyone was ok and she’d get back to me in relation to getting them flights home.
“I didn’t realise how serious it was at the time. When I started looking at the news the death count was low but then it just started rising. It was a 7.8 magnitude earthquake and it was quite shallow so it did more damage on the surface.”
More frightening for family at home was the news that just ten minutes before the quake hit, the group had been visiting a temple which was destroyed during the disaster and everyone inside was killed.
“They were very lucky. They had been in that temple only ten minutes earlier. They were out on the street when it hit which was also good fortune because the hotel they were staying in did suffer some structural damage.”
[Full story in this week’s Echo]