"It was around midnight. The ground suddenly ...sank," said Rai recalling the incident and added, "I was covered with the piles of bamboo before I could realize what had happened." [break]
She could barely struggle to stand up and was able to move only above the waist. Her left thigh was caught in the bamboo heap. She nearly lost hope of coming out alive as people were trampling on her.
"People were trampling on my chest, my stomach, my head as they ran", she said. "I started crying out but my voice went unheard for a long while and nobody came to rescue me."
Lalita said she was rescued by church volunteers after 30 minutes. Because of the lack of ambulance, she was taken by rikshaw to the BP Koirala Institute of Medical Sciences some two kilometers away for treatment. "I had fallen unconscious along the way," she said, "I regain consciousness after being treated with saline water."
The hospital said her left thigh bone was fractured. Sixty-three people are injured in the prayer house collapse. Dhan Prasad Rai, 35, of Sankhuwasawa said half the people in the structure were already asleep when the incident occured.
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