The village of Barkobot, in Sindhupalchowk district, is just an hour and a half on good roads from Kathmandu, but it may as well be on the other side of the country, writes Pete Pattisson.

Every single one of the 75 houses in the village has been severely damaged or totally destroyed, and yet no one has received any help from the government.

Where neat stone and mud houses once stood, there are now just piles of rubble. The entire village is living outdoors, under canvas, corrogated metal sheets, or just the shade of a tree. “No one is coming to help us,” said Sangita Giri. “There is a child [buried] over there, but neither the army or police have arrived to help.”

Four year-old Muna Puri was playing outside when the earthquake struck. Her body lies crushed somewhere under the rubble, but nobody knows where. “I don’t even know where to look for her. We don’t know which house fell on her,” said her dazed mother. “When we asked the army and police for help, they told us to find her ourselves.”

Muna’s parents recently took out a 200,000 rupee ($2000) loan to build their house, but now they have lost everything. “Now I don’t have a house. I don’t have a daughter,” said her father. “This is what the world has become.”

Nearby two young men are digging through the rubble with a pick to extract any food or clothing they can find. “We don’t have any food or clothes, everything is buried here,” says one. “The government hasn’t deployed anyone here. All these homes have collapsed… but the government doesn’t help, so we’re struggling to do it ourselves.”

Kopila BK is another mother mourning the loss of her daughter, 16 month old Salina. “I had put my daughter to sleep upstairs when the earthquake struck. The house collpased and she was buried and died.” But Kopila’s immediate concern is how to feed her surviving two children. “We don’t have anything to eat, everything is buried, we couldn’t retrive anything… All the rice we had was buried in the earthquake.”

But when darkness falls, the villagers face a new danger. “Thieves have started coming at night... We can’t even stay securely in our shelter. How can we live like this?” said Sangita Giri. “We stay up all night with big sticks. I’m scared. All the wealth I have left is the gold I am wearing. If they cach me and take that, I have nothing left.” Like in so many Nepali villages, most of the young men from Barkobot have left for work overseas, leaving those who remain feeling particularly vulnerable.

The fate of Barkobot is repeated again and again across the district. Ram Chandra, a police constable in Dolaghat, half an hour down the mountain from Barkobot said, “There is nowhere for anyone to stay. 80 percent of homes have been destroyed. Almost everyone in the district has been displaced, except in the bazaars [towns]. No one in the villages are still in their homes. No aid has reached here. The first priority is to get tents and food. I have lost my own home and haven’t heard from the rest of my family yet.”

Some aid is beginning to trickle in, but it is not coming from the government. Ganesh Koju and three friends had come from Kathmandu with a car full of food for friends and family stranded up in the hills. “If the government was doing its job, we wouldn’t have to be here,” said Koju. “All the relief is still at the airport. The government haven’t done anything.”