Contest #394: Bhaktapur, Katmandu Valley, Nepal

On Saturday, April 25th at 11:56am Nepal Standard Time, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck near the village of Barpak, Nepal, about 75 KM northwest of Katmandu.

The devastation from the quake was widespread and complete. As of the writing of this post, over 7000 are known dead with tens of thousands more missing. The effects were felt all over Nepal, from avalanches that killed climbers on the slopes of Everest and K2, to the myriad small villages which were left isolated with most or all structures in town damaged or destroyed, to the damage and collapse of hundreds of important cultural landmarks in the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in and around the Katmandu Valley.

One of those UNESCO sites is Durbar Square in Bhaktapur, the target of this week’s search.

Bhaktapur means “Place of Devotees”, and Durbar Square contains a series of temples and other structures, some dating back to the 15th century AD. Many of these are now in ruins.

Durbar Square Bhaktapur
(Uwe Gille)
(AP / Niranjan Shrestha)
(AP / Niranjan Shrestha)
 (AP / Niranjan Shrestha)
(AP / Niranjan Shrestha)

Some coverage of the area
BBC
CNN

Those who found it (and hopefully took the time to help in some small way):

  • Garfield
  • Phil Ower
  • Lighthouse
  • hhgygy
  • Walter_V_R
  • Paul Voestermans
  • Ashwini Agrawal
  • Marcel
  • ndrqu
  • krenek
  • mehmet durmus
  • RicardPG
  • Lelie
  • Charley Seavey (after the hint)