Man fundraises for drones for Nepal flood victims

A paramedic is raising money for emergency drone technology to help friends in a Nepalese village in the wake of devastating flash floods.

More than 1,000 people have now died in the Himalayan country since the disaster was first reported on 26 August, with more than 3,900 missing.

Phil Llewellyn, from Worcester, said the drones would help to find survivors and distribute supplies, and funds could also be used to train people how to use them.

The equipment will be used in Kaule, which Llewellyn said was structurally unharmed by the flood, but where 15 residents have died and forty remain missing after they were swept up while working in an adjacent valley in the district of Rasuwa.

"Because it's such a remote area… it's taken out most of the infrastructure," Llewellyn said.

"Trying to get essential supplies to survivors or find victims quick enough is where the death toll is going to go up."

Llewellyn, who works for West Midlands Ambulance Service, said providing training could equip locals against future disasters.

"Unfortunately Nepal is a tectonically active area, so although floods, earthquakes, landslides and glacial collapses don't happen very often, there is always a chance of it happening again," he said.

"The focus is now reducing the death toll in future."

The cause is close to home for Llewellyn, who began travelling to Nepal to climb and trek about 20 years ago.

He formed close friendships with locals and trekkers there, he said, and went back to help in 2015 when the country was hit by a deadly earthquake.

At the time, he raised more than £8,000 through a charity he set up called Rebuild Nepal, which he said he had now "resurrected".

"Some of those people [dead and missing] I would know personally, so it is a personal loss," he said.

Dr Komal Aryal, a Nepalese disaster management expert from Aston University who worked with Llewellyn in 2015, said the drones and pilots could play a "major role" in humanitarian aid.

"In remote mountain regions, they can become an important part of our everyday disaster preparedness, environmental monitoring and emergency healthcare systems," he said.

"A drone cannot replace helicopters, satellites, scientists or professional rescue teams - but it can become another pair of eyes in the mountains, and those eyes could help save lives."

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