Maidstone is home to both of the Army's Gurkha field squadrons. The Gurkha Welfare Trust says over 1,250 have died and its teams are going out to 43 pensioners.
The charity that supports Gurkha veterans and their families in Nepal says the death toll from the flash floods of 26 August has passed 1,250, with more than 4,800 people still missing.
The Gurkha Welfare Trust published the figures in a disaster update on 3 September. It is a Maidstone story because Maidstone is the home of the British Army’s Gurkha engineers.
The Maidstone connection
36 Engineer Regiment has been based at Invicta Park Barracks since the Royal Engineers first came to the town in 1949.
The regiment’s own account of itself is blunt about who serves in it. It says it has soldiers from 21 different nationalities, “including two Gurkha field squadrons”. Those are 69 Gurkha Field Squadron, which came under the regiment’s command in 1993, and 70 Gurkha Field Squadron, whose flag was raised the same year.
The regiment lists Operation Marmat, earthquake disaster relief in Nepal, among the operations it has served on. Its own timeline records that in 2015 its Gurkha field squadrons deployed to Nepal in the wake of that earthquake.
That is the precedent, and it is why this disaster lands differently in Maidstone than in most English towns.
We could not confirm today whether 36 Engineer Regiment has any role in the current response. The Ministry of Defence has published no announcement about it that we could find, and we do not report deployments that have not been announced.
What the Trust is reporting
The floods hit the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli river basin in northern and central Nepal on the morning of 26 August. The picture the Trust published changed sharply over eight days.
Its first response on 28 August recorded:
- 165 deaths, 826 people missing and 63 injured
- dozens of bridges destroyed
- around 40 kilometres of road washed away
Its update on 3 September recorded:
- more than 1,250 deaths, with recovery operations still going on
- over 4,800 people still missing, including nearly 600 foreign nationals
- up to 93,000 people displaced or directly affected
- at least 22,000 children left without safe drinking water, which the Trust says raises “urgent concerns over waterborne diseases”
The Trust’s work is specific rather than general, and its update says so. It supports Gurkha veterans, their widows and their communities, and its concern is what has happened to the pensioners on its books.
No Gurkha beneficiary has been reported killed or injured. Several families have lost everything. The Trust records that in Trishuli a Gurkha widow and her family lost their home and all their belongings when it was swept away, escaped safely, and are now in temporary accommodation. Another widow whose home was destroyed is sheltering on higher ground and is short of food, water and shelter.
A four-member Pensioner Support Team was sent out with relief supplies in the first days, but was turned back before it reached the worst-hit areas because of safety restrictions imposed by local authorities.
Roads beyond Galchhi are now passable for authorised relief vehicles. Writing on 3 September, the Trust said its Area Welfare Centre in Bagmati was planning to send welfare and medical teams out “next week” to deliver medication and pensions to 43 veterans and widows, including 25 pensioners who normally have to collect their money in person.
What it means for you
If you want to give, the point of checking first is that disasters attract appeals that are not what they appear to be.
- The Gurkha Welfare Trust takes donations directly at gwt.org.uk. It is registered charity number 1103669, which you can check on the Charity Commission register.
- Before donating to any appeal, look up its charity number on that register. A genuine UK charity will publish one.
- The Disasters Emergency Committee, which coordinates the UK’s biggest joint appeals, has not launched a Nepal appeal. Its current appeals are for Venezuela and the Middle East. Any page implying a DEC Nepal appeal is not what it says it is.
- Be wary of individual crowdfunding pages that do not name the organisation receiving the money or say how it will be spent.
Two things we could not establish today, and would like to. The Maidstone Gurkha Nepalese Community’s website at mgnc.info is not currently publishing, so we have no first-party record of what local groups are organising. And Maidstone Borough Council has published nothing on the floods in its newsroom.
If you are organising something in Maidstone for Nepal, tell us and we will report it from your own material. Our contact details are on the about page.
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