Nepal's Long Road To Quake Resilience

Nepal:
A decade has passed since a massive earthquake ripped through Nepal, but in Ram Bahadur Nakarmi's home the damage is still visible -- and so is the fear another might strike.
Ten years ago, on April 25, 2015, the ground beneath Nepal shuddered with a magnitude-7.8 earthquake, killing nearly 9,000 people, injuring over 22,000, and leaving millions homeless.
The disaster also reduced monuments to ruins, including centuries-old temples and royal palaces in the Kathmandu valley that attracted visitors from around the world.
Nakarmi's four-storey home in historic Bhaktapur city was damaged, but financial constraints made it impossible for him to rebuild.
The 61-year-old continues to live in his house despite the cracks.
"Even now, it is still scary," Nakarmi told AFP. "We are still feeling the tremors and they terrify us -- we run outside the house".
The aftermath of the quake exposed deep cracks in Nepal's disaster response system and the rebuilding efforts were initially hit by political infighting, bureaucracy and confusion.
Yet over the last decade, significant progress have been made.
According to official figures, nearly 90 percent of the homes destroyed have been rebuilt, alongside thousands of schools, health institutions, and public buildings.
Temples and cultural landmarks are also slowly rising again.
A joint assessment of affected districts by Nepal's National Society for Earthquake Technology, and the international Global Quake Model showed marked improvements for resilience in the face of another quake.
They estimated there had been a 44 percent reduction in the number of buildings at risk of complete collapse, after Nepal's rebuilding and retrofitting drive.
"Our initial years were focused on rebuilding. Now our focus should be in areas which were not affected in 2015 but are at risk of a quake," Dinesh Prasad Bhatt chief of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA), told AFP.
"We have to extend the reach of lessons learnt from the earthquake to all parts of the country."
'Inadequate Progress'
The disaster was a wake up call for a country that is situated on a dangerous geological faultline, where the Indian tectonic plate collides with the Eurasian plate to form the Himalayas.
According to the UN, Nepal ranks 11th in terms of earthquake risk.
Experts question if the country is prepared for the next one.
In the decade since the quake, the country has taken important steps.
The NDRRMA disaster reduction and management authority was established, and building codes were updated to reflect seismic safety standards.
Unlike 2015, there are elected members at local levels responsible for mobilising rescue teams, volunteers and stockpiles of emergency resources in case of a disaster.
"If you really look into a holistic picture, compared to what we had back in 2015 and right now, we've made massive progress," said Anil Pokharel, a former NDRRMA chief.
"But still, it is inadequate given the kind of growing risks."
Experts say that while Kathmandu's skyline now includes more reinforced buildings, rural areas -- where infrastructure is weaker and access to resources limited -- remain exposed.
Only 9.4 percent of structures were revealed to be safe in a 2023 integrity assessment of nearly 29,000 buildings of schools, health centres and government offices across the country by the NDRRMA.
Implementation of disaster preparedness policies and building codes is also inconsistent.
"Nepal has made many policies learning from the 2015 quake experience, but policies are only pieces of paper that dictate the system," said Surya Narayan Shrestha, from the National Society for Earthquake Technology.
"To make the system itself effective, we need people... and systems that have that capacity."
'Dangerously underprepared'
David Sislen, the World Bank chief Nepal, said that despite better policies and institutional framework, the country remains "dangerously underprepared for a major disaster".
"Without stronger enforcement and implementation of risk reduction and mitigation measures, the physical footprint of vulnerability will continue to grow, putting people, services and assets are risk," Sislen said.
He added that there was a need for "a phased financing strategy for retrofitting schools, hospitals, and other vital infrastructure".
Records at the National Earthquake Monitoring and Research Center show that over 800 earthquakes with a magnitude of four or above have struck Nepal since the 2015 quake.
Every tremor takes Shri Krishna Chhusyabada, a quake survivor who lost three of his family members under the rubble of his house, back to the fateful day.
"It was a black day for us. That day took away all our happiness," Chhusyabada said. "I hope we never see such devastation again."
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

New Indian Express

28 minutes ago

• New Indian Express

Finding the soul of India through a foreign language

This week, I came across a book that I read last year and its value struck me afresh. Particularly because I am far from 'ashamed' of knowing the English language, despite the odd political opinion in Delhi on the very many Indians who freely inhabit the unparalleled depth and range of the Anglophone world. The book I found was the late scholar-economist Bibek Debroy's last published volume, Sacred Songs—the Mahabharata's Many Gitas, devoted to the 24 gitas in the epic apart from the Bhagavad Gita. It joined a luminous list of translations from Indian scripture by other scholars. People like Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, who rendered the Bhagavad Gita and the sixteen principal Upanishads into English; C Rajagopalachari, whose abridged English translations of Valmiki's Ramayana and Vyasa's Mahabharata in the 1950s are still very much around in new editions; and Kamala Subramaniam, who produced monumental English translations of the Ramayana, Mahabharata and Srimad Bhagavatam. The value of such works is that they used the English language to repossess Indian scripture and make it accessible to the millions of Indians trapped in the English language. People who still longed to know their heritage better but had to get on with life, study, find jobs, sustain family responsibilities, all of which consumed their time. For these millions, people like Dr Radhakrishnan, C Rajagopalachari, Kamala Subramaniam, Bibek Debroy, Ramesh Menon and a score of others performed a valuable public service. Through their labours, they gave the soul of India back to those cut off by history. To look at just Debroy's prodigious output, he translated the unabridged version of Vyasa's Mahabharata into English, in a series of 10 volumes. He also translated the Bhagavad Gita, the Harivamsa (an abridged Mahabharata also credited to Vyasa), the Vedas, no less, and Valmiki's Srimad Ramayanam in three volumes.

Time of India

31 minutes ago

• Time of India

Chimpanzee trio swings into new home at SoU's jungle safari

SLUG: World Rainforest Day Vadodara: Marking World Rainforest Day on June 22, the jungle safari and zoological park at the Statue of Unity (SoU) in Kevadia of Narmada district opened a new chimpanzee exhibit to the public on Sunday. The enclosure, designed to mirror the tropical rainforests of Africa, is now home to three chimpanzees — a male named Nico and two females, Suzy and Emilia — who arrived in India from the Capital Zoo Wildlife Park in Abu Dhabi. The trio originally hails from the Republic of Equatorial Guinea. "With this addition, our park now showcases 113 'ratnas' (species)," said Vipul Chakravarti, director of the Sardar Patel Zoological Park. "The chimpanzees have settled well after their quarantine period and are now fully acclimatized to the Indian environment." Visitors can view the primates through glass barriers, offering an immersive rainforest-like experience. "Tourists will feel as if they are standing inside a rainforest, watching the chimpanzees in their natural habitat," Chakravarti said. Highlighting the ecological role of chimpanzees, he added, "Being primarily frugivorous, chimpanzees play a vital part in seed dispersal, contributing to rainforest regeneration." Chimpanzees are humans' closest living relatives, with genetic studies confirming a high degree of similarity between the two species.

Business Standard

2 hours ago

• Business Standard

AI-171 plane crash: 245 bodies handed over to families, 251 identified

The DNA samples of 251 victims in the Air India plane crash have been identified, and the mortal remains of 245 victims have been handed over to the concerned families as of Sunday evening. Speaking to mediapersons, Ahmedabad Civil Hospital Superintendent Rakesh Joshi said, "DNA samples of 251 dead bodies of the plane crash have been matched. So far, a total of 245 bodies have been handed over to the families, while six families, who are from the UK, will receive the bodies of their relatives in the near future." "The 245 dead include 176 Indian citizens, 7 Portuguese, 49 British citizens, one Canadian and 12 non-passengers. Dr Rakesh Joshi gave details of the bodies handed over," he added. On June 12, a London-bound Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed into a hostel complex of BJ Medical College in the Meghani Nagar area of Gujarat's Ahmedabad shortly after takeoff from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport. Former Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani was among the passengers who died in the plane crash Two days ago, Air India CEO and Managing Director Campbell Wilson reassured the public and employees that the airline's fleet--particularly its Boeing 787 aircraft--remains safe to operate following comprehensive checks and that the carrier is exercising maximum caution in the wake of the AI171 tragedy. In an official communication, Campbell said, "Have our aircraft been deemed safe? Yes. We have completed the additional precautionary checks on our operating Boeing 787 fleet as requested by the DGCA, who have publicly declared that they meet required standards." "We have also, as a matter of abundant precaution, voluntarily decided to continue additional pre-flight checks for the time being. Where there is any doubt, we will not release aircraft - of any type - for service," said the CEO. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)