On April 25, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit the central region of Nepal, a country in Asia that is bordered by two highly populated countries, India and China. After the April earthquake, Nepal suffered from many aftershocks and then on May 12, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake hit the eastern region of Nepal, near Mount Everest.

The most powerful earthquake ever recorded was the Chilean earthquake in 1960, rated as a 9.5, so these disasters do not fall far behind. The death toll has topped 5,200, more than 10,000 are hurt, and an estimated 2.8 million are homeless, according to the United Nations.

In addition to the large amount of deaths and injuries, thousands of homes and schools were destroyed in the April quake. News reports indicate that hospitals in the capital are overflowing and doctors are in short supply of medicine and surgical equipment. Many citizens are living in tarps outdoors with a short supply of  food and water. The U.N. said that Nepal has received only $22 million of the $415 million it appealed for.

The second disaster in May hit the town of Namche Bazaar and thousands of panicked residents fled to the capital, Kathmandu. The latest quake was felt in Northern India and Bangladesh. India’s home ministry confirmed 17 dead in India, and Chinese officials confirmed one dead in China. Landslides were also reported by Save the Children and The International Organisation for Migration said bodies were being pulled from rubble. Many weakened buildings from the April earthquake were completely destroyed in the latest earthquake.

A Chinese rescue team and a team of doctors from India and Japan came to Nepal to aid the victims in late April. President Barack Obama also pledged that the United States will do all that it can to help the people of Nepal. Although foreign assistance has poured in, the capital has a single-runway airport, fuel shortages, damaged roads, and Nepal has a mountainous terrain, making it hard for foreign countries to send assistance to the citizens in Nepal.

Nepal’s monarchy ended in 2008 and since then, the country has struggled to create a new democratic constitution for itself because of conflicting views of the Communist Maoists and the Nepali Congress. Because of the country’s political instability, the earthquake has hit the nation especially hard, as there is an extreme lack of leadership on behalf of the nation’s prime minister, Sushil Koirala.

Nepal is also one of the world’s least-developed countries and it has a population of 26 million. One of the central disagreements is whether the country should be divided into states along ethnic lines and the earthquake has only widened divisions between the government and Maoist rebels according to Prashant Jha, an author and expert on Nepalese politics.

The Nepalese government is offering free bus tickets for citizens to leave town, and the government has agreed to pay a little less than $1,000 to the families of those who died in the disaster according to Mr. Koirala’s office. However, citizens of Nepal have reported that they feel their shaky government is not doing enough to help. Koirala urged for all of those who helped in the April quake to once again keep helping the Nepalese citizens in this time of crisis.