Since the deadly earthquake struck on Nepal last Saturday, it’s beyond words to witness the continuous rise of death tolls, with last count at 3200: Corpses are lying on the streets, homeless people staying out and UNESCO historic sites reduce to rubbles.

It’s a tragic event for the developing country that in recent years have been troubled by political turmoil and natural disasters. Among the poorest countries in the world, it’s lack of resources have been hampering the peoples daily lives; Load shedding of electricity, occasional flooding in urban area and bad pollution and traffic in central Kathmandu. The last thing the country need is another disaster of this scale.

The news of the disaster struck me hard as as I was there just a few weeks back. Although I’m glad that I have avoided the disaster, I know that this is not the time for me to feel lucky. My heart are still with the people I have met: The shop owner selling the painting that I bought from, the waiters from Black Olives Cafe, the guides and friendly villagers I met along the trek, police in Pokara. I hope they are all ok.

Living in the comfort of Singapore, we often measured the severe of the event through the number of fatal casualty and it’s easily fall into the trap of “this disaster is not as big as the previous one and since I have not made any donation to that one, why should I do it for this one?” logic. The thing is that just because there are bigger disasters happened before  doesn’t make this disaster any less tragic.

Let’s start now, it’s always at these very moments that we as Singaporean, need to take a step forward and show empathy to the less fortunates around the world. We have never experienced tragic event of such scale and we may never apprehend how it’s feel like losing love ones, our home and our living, and I hope that we never would. The least thing we can do now is to make a donation to Mercy Relief or other charity organisation who are out there saving lives.

I hope the country will recover well from this disaster and emerge as strong as ever. Namaste.