The main highway that heads east out of Kathmandu shows massive cracks, the tarmac torn apart by the force of Saturday's huge tremor. One lane is bisected by gaping, half-meter (1.5 feet) fissures. They've been filled in with rubble and dirt, allowing passage for those desperate citizens to reach their families in outlying districts.
It takes an age, though, picking our way along damaged roads to a small village community, Ravi Opi. It is only 30 kilometers (20 miles) east of Kathmandu but the journey takes almost two hours -- and the travel times likely to be compounded the farther out from the city people go.
The community is off the main highway, down a dirt track that quickly finds itself winding through forested slopes and terraced fields. They farm corn here, and millet, and vegetables. Compared to the capital, and the regions west of Kathmandu and closer to the epicenter, the people here were relatively lucky.
