Local efforts underway to help Nepal quake victims

SOUTH BRUNSWICK, N.J. (WPVI) -- As the death toll climbs after the earthquake in Nepal, we are learning more about the local efforts to help the survivors.

Dr. Tulsi Maharjan, president of friends of Nepal-New Jersey, told Action News on Monday that the needs there are immediate.

"Anything and everything. Food, water, shelter," said Maharjan.

But instead of collecting food, clothing and supplies that could take two months to reach his native country, he's focusing on fundraising.

Maharjan's 82-year-old mother, brother and other family members are in shelters right now, but alive.

He said rather than rush home to Nepal, he will try to use his contacts in the Rotary Club to help raise money for earthquake victims.

"Being here I can do probably more than being there, because you're going to get frustrated. Roads are not working, electricity's not working," he said.

Maharjan's friend Charles Brine is helping to shape the fundraising effort.

"Think about not having a place to live. Think about not having any water. They had water problems before. They're going to have massive water problems now," said Brine.

A 28-year-old New Jersey doctor Marisa Eve Girawong of Edison was among those killed in an avalanche after the earthquake.

A neighbor of Girawong tells us, "We all knew her as a very outgoing, innocent, always wanted to go out and do things for people."

Blair Schoene is a geochronologist at Princeton University who hiked Nepal three years ago with a group of alumni.

He says, "Kathmandu, which is an overpopulated city without the infrastructure to really handle this kind of disaster and so I just feel for everyone who's living there."

At least two fundraisers are set for the next couple weeks and given the devastation in Nepal, Tulsi Maharjan says this will be an ongoing effort to help the victims there.

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Here's how YOU can help the victims of the Nepal earthquake