Nepal Earthquake Appeal

First published in April 2015, two days after the earthquake; the fundraiser has ended and the casualty figures are those reported at the time.

On the 25th of April, at around 11:45 am, we heard a sudden rumbling and felt the earth moving at our operations facility in Siliguri – a city that is located in north Bengal and close to the international borders of Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan. We quickly rushed out of the building, scrambling for safety. A little later we learned that what we had felt were tremors from an earthquake that had hit Nepal that day.

Measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, this is the worst earthquake to have hit Nepal in the last 80 years. Just to put the magnitude of the catastrophe in perspective, one of the experts has likened it to 20 thermonuclear hydrogen bombs – each many times greater than the atomic bomb that devastated Hiroshima – ripping through the Kathmandu Valley.

We at Teabox have an apparent Nepalese gene, which goes much beyond us sourcing and distributing fine teas from Nepal. Since Nepal is just about an hour’s drive from Siliguri, our sourcing team travels to Nepal regularly. Moreover, Balaji, who manages our Nepalese tea sourcing, is from there and joined us last year after having worked in the Nepalese tea industry for 5 years. The head of our Darjeeling sourcing team, Gopal, has ancestral roots in Nepal’s Gorkha district, where many members of his family still reside. The Gorkha district has been one of the worst affected regions in this earthquake.

In the aftermath of the quake, which has thus far claimed the lives of 2,430 people and left more than 6,200 injured, nations, intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, and relief agencies have geared up to deliver personnel, supplies, food, medicine and financial assistance to Nepal.

To express our support and solidarity, we are helping raise funds to aid relief programs in Nepal led by UNICEF. We have put in place a Crowdrise campaign to raise $5,000 for UNICEF, a global organization presently working in various areas affected by the earthquake in Nepal, providing humanitarian and developmental assistance to the nation. Teabox has made a donation of $2,000 to the campaign and we invite you to join us in this effort to achieve the $5,000 target.

Join us in this effort to assist the people of Nepal in recovering and rebuilding their lives.

To know more about Nepal Earthquake Appeal – A Teabox Crowdrise campaign and make a donation, visit: https://www.crowdrise.com/nepalearthquakeappeal/fundraiser/teaboxteam

This appeal has since closed, and the donation page above is no longer active.

Originally published on Still Steeping, the Teabox blog, on April 27, 2015. Lightly edited for clarity in October 2026.