Shaken and stirred

SEEDS has been working with the governments of India and Nepal and the United Nations Development Program to train Nepalese survivors to construct earthquake-resilient houses

Four years ago, on April 25, a 7.6 magnitude earthquake destroyed over half a million homes, killed nearly 9,000 people and injured 22,000 in Nepal. Recent conversations with 35-year-old Samjhana B K and 66-year-old Binda Adhikari from two wards in Nepal’s Gorkha district that is close to the epicentre of the 2015 earthquake, made me realise that four years on, people are still shaking from its impact.

 

On April 25, 2015, around noon, Samjhana and her three children were at home when the ground began to shake. “We ran out when our house started collapsing,” she said. “My children kept asking me if we were all going to die.” The family went to the field where the entire village had gathered. Aftershock upon aftershock rocked their world and they camped there for days, too scared to go back home. Samjhana’s three school-going children didn’t attend school for months after. “The school building collapsed as well, and when it reopened almost three months later, many children were too terrified to go,” she says. “We were too terrified to send them.”

 

Adhikari too barely escaped the tremblor with her life. Physically disabled, she recounted how she fell several times in her haste to reach an open ground. “International aid enabled me to rebuild my home in about seven months,” she told me. “But it took me much longer to bring myself to actually live there.” That year, while her house was rebuilt, she spent the harsh summer and monsoon living within the construction site.

 

Both spoke of the long-lasting consequences of the quake. Job opportunities, that had never been plentiful in this region, dried up. Tourism numbers dipped. Many ended up taking loans from extortionate moneylenders to rebuild their lives and homes. Poverty escalated and many migrated. Cases of human trafficking increased, as did frustration among youth.

 

“Yesterday, we experienced another small quake and painful memories from 2015 came flooding back,” Adhikari said. “I don’t know if we can survive another one.” They might not. The impact of strong earthquakes snowballs in underdeveloped, poverty-stricken regions. Which is why there’s much to learn from the Nepal case.

SEEDS (Sustainable Environment and Ecological Development Society) has been working with the governments of India and Nepal and the United Nations Development Program to train Nepalese survivors to construct earthquake-resilient houses. “In Nepal, most of the houses that collapsed had been built by migrant labourers who had little idea of local geology and traditional architecture,” said Manu Gupta, co-founder, SEEDS. “Unplanned development also resulted in an amplification of impact of the landslides that occurred after the quake.”

 

Unsettlingly, seismologists believe that the Nepal quake has likely loaded the surrounding region for an even more destructive mega-earthquake that could clock in at magnitudes of over 8.5. That’s why it is critical for Indian policymakers, politicos and the average joe on the street to learn from the Nepal quake and mitigate the impact of the next Big One. For like it or not, it’s going to happen.