KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) – The blue-rimmed eyes of Kathmandu’s gold-spired Swayambhunath stupa stare silently from a hilltop overlooking this city in the Himalayan foothills.
But since Nepal was shattered by a mammoth earthquake Saturday, those eyes have gazed upon a nation in mourning – and on a microcosm of destruction and despair inside the ancient temple itself.
Here, monkeys scurry across the demolished ruins of a pair of precious bullet-shaped edifices built by King Pratap Malla in the 1600s. Saffron-robed monks haul golden relics and carpets out of a ruined monastery. The temple now has its own population of displaced – priests and vendors huddle under tents, sleeping in darkness waiting for authorities try to repair downed power lines.
Swayambhunath, which dates back to the 5th century, is one of at least 68 cultural heritage sites in Nepal that were damaged by the tremor, according to Nipuna Shrestha of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, citing preliminary figures from the Department of Archaeology. That’s nearly 80 percent of historic landmarks in seven monument zones that have been declared as World Heritage Sites in the Kathmandu Valley alone.
Few would compare the loss of Nepal’s historic treasures to the massive human misery wrought by the magnitude-7.8 quake, which has claimed more than 6,600 lives, damaged more than have a million homes, and displaced nearly 3 million people.