On 25 April 2015 a 7.8 magnitude earthquake shook Nepal. Centered in the village of Barpak in the Gorkha district of the country,  it is the most powerful quake to hit the country since 1934. So far it is estimated that over 7000 people have died, with hundreds of thousands more made homeless. Buddha Basnyat is the Director of the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Nepal, which is supported by the Wellcome Trust. Here, he tells us about his experience of the earthquake and the on-going effort to help people affected…

When the first tremor shook Kathmandu at midday, Saturday April 25, I was working at my desk peer reviewing an article about high altitude medicine. I thought this was a mild quake, another one of those earthquakes not uncommon in Kathmandu. It was only when I was going down the stairs (absolutely the wrong thing to do) and…