One hundred and twenty six Home Team officers are focusing their efforts on the Gorkha district in Nepal – the Republic’s largest deployment for an overseas relief operation.
In a Facebook post on Sunday (May 3), Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean said the Home Team contingent consisted of 60 officers from the Singapore Civil Defence Force and 66 officers from the Singapore Police Force. There are also Gurkha officers – 30 of whom reached Nepal on Sunday with more relief supplies.
Singapore Police Force officers loading supplies bound for Pokhara, Nepal. (Photo: Teo Chee Hean’s Facebook page)
Gorkha is close to the epicentre of the earthquake, which occurred between Pokhara and Kathmandu, said Mr Teo. Because road connections are also damaged, personnel and supplies are airlifted to Gorkha via helicopters.
The Ministry of Home Affairs added that because ground operations are moving into the recovery phase, the base of operations has been shifted from Kathmandu to Pokhara. The focus is to provide humanitarian aid, such as medical assistance and distribution of basic food items to the affected population.
A map illustrating Singapore’s deployment in Nepal. (Image: Ministry of Home Affairs)
“Our contingent is staging out of Pokhara (Nepal’s second largest city), to reach Gorkha district by helo. Our officers are familiar with this area and the local communities, as a good number of our Gurkha Contingent officers come from this region,” he said in the post.
Last week’s earthquake in Nepal has killed more than 7,000 people, with officials expecting the death toll to rise further.
Source: www.channelnewsasia.com
