A Virtual Response to a Real Disaster in Nepal

"An 8 magnitude has just hit Kathmandu. There is utter chaos, fires are raging and there is a communications blackout," announced Suresh Ojha into the phone on a real-time simulated conference call on 25 September, exactly a week after an earthquake devastated eastern Nepal.

In Oakland California at the Community Health for Asian Americans (CHAA) there is silence on the line. It is clear that the participants of this mock crisis response exercise are unsure where to start.

"This is exactly the situation, we're hoping to avoid," explains Ojha, "in the case of an actual crisis we have to be up and running." He rattles off a list of things to be done if this was a real emergency, starting with hotlines for information from Nepal.