IOC Reaches Nepal NOC President

(ATR)The IOC tells Around the Rings that Nepal NOC presidentDhurba Bahadur Pradhan isdoing as well as can be expected in the aftermath of a massive earthquake that hit Nepal on April 25.

"He is okay," a spokesperson for the IOC says.

"And of course, we have told the NOC, when the time is right we will help rebuild sporting infrastructure."

A delegation from the IOC, including IOC president Thomas Bach, is in Vanuatu for the remainder of the week and will then finish up a trip to New Zealand on May 6.

The Nepal NOC was formed in 1962 and officially recognized by the IOC in 1963.

On Thursday, headlines out of Nepal were dominated by the story of two survivors rescued fromthe rubble of buildings in Kathmandu.

Fifteen-year-old Pemba Lamatold BBC News that during the five days after the quake, he survived by drinking water from wet clothes and eating clarified butter.

The second survivor, a woman officials believe is in her 20s, was pulled from a collapsed block where she had been trapped alongside three bodies.

According to BBC News, officials say Saturday's 7.8-magnitude quake inured some 11, 000 people. CNN reports that the death toll has topped 5,500.

Several Nepalese athletes were in Suzhou, China for the 2015 World Table Tennis Championships, which began on April 26, the day after the massive quake hit Nepal.

Thomas Weikert, president of the International Table Tennis Federation,spoke with members of the Nepalese team on Sunday to express his condolences.

The delegation of athletes from Nepal did not qualify to remain in competition at the championships this week.

Niva Shrestha, a representative of the Canadian Paralympic Committee whose family is from Nepal, helped set up a fund for relief efforts in the country.

Over the next 32 days, Shrestha hopes to raise at least $8,000 for the "Nepal Earthquake Fund."Click here to donate.

Written byNicole Bennett

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