[ASA] Earthquake in Kathmandu

Mon May 11 17:08:24 AEST 2015

Dear ASA members,

      The suggestion has been made that there may be some advantage in
a coordinated response to the request (below) by Prof. Aryal for donations
to support the astronomy group at Tribhuvan University following the
earthquake in Kathmandu.

I would like to call for a volunteer from each major metropolitan area who
is prepared to coordinate the efforts of those in that area in providing
donations of both funds and hardware. Please let me know by Wednesday
this week (13 May) if you are able to take on such a role. Please also
feel free to circulate this request to your contacts outside the ASA in
order that the pool of potential volunteers is as large as possible.

There are several motivations for this, not least that it will be more cost
effective to manage a single large shipment, or funds transfer, than
many small ones. I leave it up to the individual volunteers to manage
that process including arrangements for the cost sharing amongst donors.

If I have multiple volunteers from a given area, I'll ask them to
work together, or to nominate one to manage donations from that
region. I'll follow up on Thursday this week with a notification to
the community of who will be coordinating activities in each locale.

Of course you are welcome to respond to Prof. Aryal's request
independently of this effort too, and I'm sure all contributions will
be gratefully received.

Andrew Hopkins
President, ASA

On 7/05/2015 3:41 am, Bryan Gaensler wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> Below is a request from Prof Binil Aryal, a professor of astronomy at 
> Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu. Binil is an active research 
> astronomer, has hosted some excellent international conferences, and 
> has supervised many smart Nepali students who have gone onto 
> graduate/postgraduate studies at universities around the world. His 
> department and lab were badly damaged by the earthquake: he needs help 
> from the worldwide astronomy community to replace his equipment and to 
> keep astronomy research going in Nepal.
>
> regards,
>
> Bryan Gaensler
>
>
>> Begin forwarded message:
>>
>> From: Binil Aryal <aryalbinil at gmail.com <mailto:aryalbinil at gmail.com>>
>> Subject: Humble Request From Binil, Kathamdu, Nepal
>> Date: 6 May 2015 03:00:24 GMT-4
>>
>> Dear friends,
>>
>> I am Binil, actively working Astrophysicists of Nepal. Right now I am 
>> Head of my the Central Department of Physics. If you remember, me and 
>> my students had put lots of efforts to make Kathmandu Black 
>> Hole Conference successful.
>>
>> Personally me and my family is OK, trying to be normal after facing a 
>> very strong Earth Quake (my home is almost damaged, my institute is 
>> partially cracked/ our computation lab have almost gone).
>>
>> My computation lab (particularly for astrophysics group) and solar 
>> energy back-up facility at the department have almost gone because of 
>> the massive fall of the walls of the building due to Earth Quake.
>>
>> I had worked hard to build that computation facility in my department 
>> since last 7 years. I supervised more than 90 M.Sc. students in that 
>> laboratory for their masters' dissertation and now 18 MSC students 
>> are working. In addition, 4 Ph.D. students were working under my 
>> supervision in that laboratory. Almost 85% CPUs were crashed because 
>> of the fall of the wall/selves/windows in my department. Yesterday we 
>> tried hard to check all CPUs, Power Storage Battery, Solar panel, 
>> projectors and monitors. Country's situation is very bad. Government 
>> can not support research stuff, immediately. We badly need support 
>> from friends and wishers.
>>
>> I request you to circulate this disaster-news to as many as people in 
>> your University so that we can get support to immediate make-up the 
>> following (so that research activities in Nepal can not be stopped):
>>
>> (1) Few used/old laptops (at least 20 / because we have about 90 
>> graduate students including 18 dissertation and 4 Ph.D. students)
>> (2) 3KW power Solar Panel + Battery (It will cost about 5000 US Dollar)
>> (3) 1KW Inverter + Battery (It will cost about 1300 US Dollar)
>> (3) Two used projectors / Two Cathode Ray Oscilloscopes / Dizital 
>> Oscilloscopes
>>
>> I can send bank account of my department if you are interested to 
>> donate. Your small contribution will be a GREAT for me and my 
>> students. If I could not manage support I will be helpless/jobless 
>> and can not do more for my students.
>>
>> Regards
>> Binil
>>
>> -- 
>> ------------------------------
>> Prof. Dr. Binil Aryal
>> Head
>> Central Department of Physics
>> Tribhuvan University, Kirtipur, NEPAL
>> Tel. 00977 9803221911 (mobile)
>>       00977 14912801 (home)
>>       00977 14331054 (office)
>> Web: http://astronepal.webs.com
>> ------------------------------
>>
>>
>
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-- 
Prof. Andrew Hopkins, Head of Research and Outreach
Australian Astronomical Observatory
P.O. Box 915, North Ryde, NSW 1670, Australia
ph: +61 2 9372 4849  fax: +61 2 9372 4880

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