The advance team of four, deployed to support the German embassy as well as a team of the Rapid Deployment Unit Water Supply Abroad of THW (SEEWA), has arrived in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu at midday. The experts will explore the situation on site and prepare the SEEWA operations.
To prepare the operations, possible water extraction points are now being identified. Furthermore, the operational site of the SEEWA is being coordinated with the local authorities and the international colleagues responsible for the coordination (UNICEF). As soon as the dispatched equipment has arrived in Nepal, the THW volunteers will be able to react quickly and to start with the treatment of the urgently needed drinking water. “The THW operations are possible thanks to the good interaction between the volunteers from the operations centre in Bonn and the Foreign Office”, said THW's President, Mr Albrecht Broemme. Furthermore, Mr Broemme thanked the airline companies Air India, Indigo Airlines as well as Lufthansa for their support in the transport.
The SEEWA is a foreign unit, which allows THW to quickly respond to acute drinking water demands in disaster situations. The tasks of SEEWA comprise mobile drinking water treatment, water distribution, water analysis and the repair of destroyed water supply systems. The drinking water experts from THW were last in action in the summer of 2014, after severe flooding had hit the Balkans.