One year after: Nepal starts to build back better
GENEVA, 28 April 2016 - One of the world’s most ambitious low-cost housing reconstruction programmes ever to be undertaken in a seismic zone is due to get underway this week following first anniversary of the 25 April Nepal earthquake.
Nepal’s new Reconstruction Authority and its partners are embarking on a programme to provide over 500,000 low-cost, earthquake-resistant homes to some three million people who have already survived a rainy season and a harsh winter in temporary shelters and makeshift dwellings.
Given the shortage of trained masons and other obstacles, it could take up to four years to complete.
The earthquake which struck on 25 April was followed by another one on 12 May; 8,790 lives were lost and thousands of people were injured and disabled and some three million people lost their homes in the worst affected districts.
Mr. Amod Dixit, the head of the Nepal Society for Earthquake Technology (NSET), said that there is confidence now that the reconstruction can finally go ahead.
“Nepal has now promulgated the legislation for reconstruction and formulated some of the basic and very urgent policies and regulations that were totally lacking when the earthquake struck. Although as of now, not a single house has been reconstructed as per the government plan there is hope and confidence that real progress will be made and that the reconstruction will be done correctly,” he said.
A detailed damage and needs assessment of all affected houses and households is nearly complete and affected families have received, or will shortly receive a financial assistance of US$2,000 towards the cost of reconstruction.
Many would argue that this is not enough but the government is also providing assistance through teams comprising a social mobiliser, a technical engineering expert and a trained mason to help householders to rebuild to the national building code standards which will significantly reduce mortality in the event of another strong earthquake.
The social mobilisers will work with the affected people through the village development councils in the 31 affected districts to raise awareness of the importance of building back better using proven techniques developed by NSET over many years in Nepal and neighbouring Pakistan.
“It is important now to use this opportunity to inculcate a culture of safety,” said Mr. Dixit.
It was reported this week in Kathmandu that the National Reconstruction Authority has deployed a total 1,347 engineers and the same number of sub engineers for reconstruction under the Ministry of Urban Development to work at village level.
NSET, which has long struggled to convince donors that it was possible to build earthquake-resistant buildings using local materials and specially trained masons under the supervision of locally trained engineering technicians, has noticed a new acceptance of their methodology.
The visible proof that their methods work is there in the fact that all 350 schools retrofitted by NSET survived both the earthquakes of last year when 25,000 classrooms were damaged or collapsed across the seismic zone.
NSET estimates that the country will need more than 60,000 masons to keep pace with the reconstruction effort. It has developed a national training curriculum which has been adopted by the Government.
A unique feature of the Nepal Building Code which was developed in 1994 after an earlier earthquake, and made legally binding in 2003, is that it sets out earthquake-resistant standards for non-engineered structures.
Mr. Dixit explained: “The Nepal Building Code prescribes seismic bands tying up the corners of the house and strengthening thickness of the walls in masonry buildings that are the dominant building typologies in Nepal. There are several methods prescribed in the design of such non-engineered buildings. Such design ensures that the likelihood of any death inside the house is minimised even in case of a large and rare earthquake in which the building may suffer serious damage. In the case of a moderate earthquake there could be some damage to the structure but there will be no deaths.”
The Building Code in fact prescribes that buildings should be able to withstand level 9 on the Mercalli intensity scale which goes to 12.
Mr. Dixit reflected that as promoted by the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction - the global plan for reducing disaster losses adopted in March 2015 - the reconstruction effort must also focus on rebuilding the fabric of society and restoring livelihoods in the earthquake zone which is now dotted with temporary shelters and temporary learning centres..
There have been no local elections in Nepal for the past 15 years. “The political parties are demanding elections and the Reconstruction Authority has also asked for elections in the earthquake affected districts. With local elections assistance could have been done much better than it is being done now, as it would allow the people to channelize their voice in a structured way. The lack of local representatives makes the whole development process much more difficult,” said Mr. Dixit.