Teenager found alive beneath rubble 5 days after earthquake in Nepal

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NEED TO KNOW:

With tragedy comes miracles and in Kathmandu on Thursday, a full five days after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake leveled much of the city, a miracle happened. Rescuers found a teenager buried alive in the rubble of a building, and they pulled him to safety.

Crowds of jubilant Nepalese cheered when they realized the boy was still alive. It was a moment of much-needed good news. The last five days had been brutal. A cold rain has persisted almost every day since the earthquake struck on Saturday, hampering rescue efforts and adding to the misery of the many thousands left homeless. Officials say more than 5,500 people are now believe to have been killed.

As if things couldn't get worst, residents protesting the slow pace of aid delivery clashed with riot police on Wednesday in Kathmandu. Thousands were attempting to board buses to return to their home villages to meet families. But a lack of bus service and news that aid workers had still not reached affected areas outside of the capital left many survivors deeply frustrated. By Thursday the government had organized more buses, and thousands were beginning to migrate back to the countryside.

Villages just hours from Kathmandu have been running out of food and water as they desperately wait for help to arrive. Many of the roads leading out of the capital remained blocked by landslides and the weather grounded helicopters carrying supplies.

“If we don’t get food, we will die,” Prikash Tamang, a resident from Ghyangphedi, which is about six hours southeast of Kathmandu, told GlobalPost. The village of 150 people has slept nervously beneath makeshift tarps, rationing a dwindling pile of biscuits.

WANT TO KNOW:

Northern Nigeria is poor. Infrastructure is scarce. It's been almost entirely neglected by the Nigerian government for decades. It's also predominantly Muslim, compared to the mostly Christian south. It's this scenario that Boko Haram, the brutal terrorist organization, uses to justify its existence. The group grew in power and zeal until last year, when it erupted.

The scale of the destruction is overwhelming, with an enormous swath of Nigeria’s poorest region in ruins. Aid agencies warn that a humanitarian emergency is looming. And some of the 1.5 million people displaced by the terror group are too traumatized to return home.

Many of them fled to Yola. Once a town of 350,000 people, Yola's population has doubled in size in the last year. Many are living in temporary homes, half-built cinderblock houses. They are struggling to find work and food. Aid organizations have helped some of the displaced families find land to farm. That worked for about five thousand of them — a drop in the ocean.  

The name Boko Haram has come to mean something along the lines of “Western education is sin.” It stems from the days of British colonialism, when Western education and values were forced on local communities. That's where you can find the roots of Boko Haram, which these days preys on the uneducated, the neglected and the helpless to populate its ranks.

Wary of this, displaced Nigerian educators are setting up new schools wherever they can, even when books and other essentials are in short supply. "If you didn't train your children in the modern situation, it means you did nothing," one of them told GlobalPost Senior Correspondent Erin Conway-Smith.

STRANGE BUT TRUE:

Venezuela's medicine shortage is so bad that pharmacies are fingerprinting the sick. This week, the country's health minister unveiled a new national system that requires all patients to register their fingerprints at pharmacies. They will then be allowed to buy just a limited amount of medicine.

GlobalPost Senior Correspondent Simeon Tegel writes that the program aims to solve widespread shortages that have left many Venezuelans unable to treat all kinds of ailments, from hemorrhoids to cancer.

The government blames hoarding. But in reality, it's likely the fault of the government, which has presided over disastrous economic policies. Inflation has skyrocketed. So has the budget deficit. The currency, meanwhile, has plummeted. It is really not looking good in Venezuela right now.