Calcutta architect Disha Bose was stranded somewhere near Chamrong in Nepal on Sunday afternoon following a high-magnitude earthquake in the Himalayan country.
Disha was clueless what to do, how to establish a contact with her acquaintances. What came to her rescue was Patna-based ham operators' group - Society of Radio Amateurs (Sora). The group contacted Sambalpur (Odisha)-based ham operator Dilip Kumar Padhi about Disha. Padhi passed on the information to Satish Kharel, a ham operator working in Kathmandu, who managed to get in touch with the Nepal police and by evening Disha was traced and rescued.
The Sora members have stepped in to extend a helping hand to people stuck in Nepal because of the natural calamity. Sora is establishing communication with ham operators from across the country and their counterparts in Nepal.
"We got to know about Disha on Sunday from his classmate Soham Krishnan. Disha had gone for trekking at Annapurna base camp in Nepal and she got lost in Chamrong. We are really happy that we have been able to trace and rescue her with the help of other ham operators in India and Nepal," said Sanjay Gautam, a member of Sora.
According to Pranav Sahi, the president of Sora, which is working in the city since 1990, the ham operators associated with Sora are working 24 hours to help tragedy-struck people in the neighbouring country. "We cannot do this alone. Ham operators from across the country are working hard to trace people in the neighbouring country who have gone missing. At present, our three ham operators are working in three different stations - Patna (Sanjay Gautam), Patna City (Jaipal Arya) and Biharsharif (Satendra Kumar). All of them are working in shifts to provide 24x7 service."
What makes the Sora members work tirelessly to help trace missing people in Nepal even when they are not paid a single penny for the service? "Yes, we know we are not going to get any reward for this nor we are going to be given any cash prize by the government. We are doing all this on the humanitarian ground. We know how does it feel when your near and dear ones are caught in such kind of situation. Imagine, if you have got stuck somewhere and you have no access to water, food and anything. All of us (the ham operators) are helping in the rescue operation on humanitarian ground. We don't want anything in return," added Gautam.
Gautam's wife, Nita, who happens to be a licensed ham operator and helping her in the rescue operation, however, has other reasons for joining the noble work. "I have seen earthquake from very close in 2001. My brother-in-law was stuck in Kutch (Gujarat) for two days. We had no clues about him and when he returned, he had lost everything. He had no money. He had nothing. So when we join such kind of rescue operations as ham operators, the satisfaction which we get from our work is something cannot be achieved by doing anything else," said Nita.
The Sora members who are working from their different stations in the state are soon going to work with the ham operators in Nepal in their base stations.
"We have received a letter from National Institute of Amateur Radio, Hyderabad (NIAR). They have asked us if we would like to go to Nepal and work with the ham operators there because in Nepal, the number of ham operators is very less. A five-member team of NIAR had already gone to Nepal to work with the ham operators there. Another team of NIAR, which would consist of ham operators from across the country, is set to go in Nepal in which the Sora members would also be present. We are definitely going to join the NIAR but we have decided that of the 10 ham operators of Sora, only a few would go there because here also we need a team of ham operators to carry out rescue operation," added Sora president Sahi.
