Nepal's Earthquake Aftermath: Impacts and Governmental Responses

Introduction

This effects of earthquake essay that seeks to discuss the detrimental impacts, immediate and long-term responses due to the destruction and chaos the Nepal earthquake caused in 2015. This piece of writing will focus on the key risk factors in Nepal and the lack of good governance and preparedness for disasters in this active seismic area. Nonetheless, the earthquake which the government of Nepal prepared for was further east and smaller than they predicted. Thus, using this as a warning for future natural disasters.

Overview

Nepal, which is located in southern Asia, is a landlocked country bordered by India to the east, south and west. Additionally, it is also bordered by China in the north. Nepal lies approximately amid the latitudes of 26 and 31 degrees north and the longitude of 80 and 89 east. As Nepal sits on the boundary of two colossal tectonic plates (Indo-Australian and Asian plates) which makes it predominantly prone to earthquakes. The earthquake occurred due to the ongoing convergence of these two plates which gradually built up over time. The disastrous Gorkha earthquake hit on April 25th, 2015 amongst Pokhara and the capital city of Kathmandu. The 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck before 12 local time (at around 11 am GMT). Moreover, this was the most detrimental earthquake in 81 years, approximately 9,000 people died and there was more than 22,000 people who suffered injuries. Through the central eastern part of Nepal, the earthquake was felt as well as western Bhutan, north-western Bangladesh, southern parts of the Plateau of Tibet and northern India. Consequently, around Mount Everest it triggered deadly avalanches, hundreds of aftershocks then followed. Just 17 days later, another major earthquake struck which a magnitude of 7.3 temblor. Out of 75 districts with a population of 8 million 39 were affected (this is about 1/3 of the national population). 

Effects of Earthquake

Buildings that centuries old were obliterated at UNESCO World Heritage sites in the valley of Kathmandu, this included the Dharahra Tower and some at the Changu Narayan Temple. Across multiple districts of Nepal thousands of houses were devastated. This earthquake was the worst Nepal had seen in over 80 years. A negative social consequence is that 1.7 million children were driven out into the open streets due to being made homeless as their entire village may have been flattened. On the other hand, a negative economic effect was that there was a loss of tourist revenue which is relied upon in Nepal but due to the earthquake destroying sites that tourists may want to see in order to become a part of their culture deters them from visiting. Additionally, the fear of another earthquake occurring also deters many tourists from visiting therefore the GDP will be at risk of decreasing because of this. Judging the size of the earthquake the short-term impact that occurred was huge. The initial damages of the earthquake came to approximately between $5 and $10 million, those who lived in extreme poverty were affected by this as a result of them losing all the land and property that they own, at the very end of the earthquake it was found that 2.8 million people had to be evacuated due to the earthquake to possibly set up a whole new life someplace else. In order to cope with these detrimental impacts Nepal (as a LIC country) ending up borrowing a large sum of money from the World Bank Asian Development Bank and International Monetary Fund, a total amount of $2.9 billion. To put this to scale the total economic damage that was caused by this earthquake totalled to almost half of Nepal’s GDP. As well as economic and social effects there were also many environmental effects such as damage to precious wildlife, reduction of biodiversity, loss of habitats, and water resources. The hygiene of the people living in Lamjung were severely affected due to the lack of clean water and the interruption of electricity throughout the city. 

Unequal Impacts

There were multiple hazardous impacts of the earthquake that hit Nepal. As the magnitude of the earthquake was 7.8 the number of people dead or injured was lower than first expected this may specify that the ground was shaking less and/or the buildings were sturdier than expected. The number of schools flattened could be reduced from 7,000 if the earthquake had occurred midday on a Saturday in turn the death toll would’ve been reduced. Moreover, approximately 500,000 people were made homeless and whole villages were demolished. The United Nation estimated that one third of the total population (8 million people), were affected by the earthquake. Neighbouring countries such as India, Bangladesh and China were also affected, with a total of 89 deaths and 350 people injured. There were three major unequal impacts one being spatial (which is a environmental unequal impact). In rural areas poor quality housing were significantly affected than in towns and cities. Before the earthquake Kathmandu Valley had a large lake that was infilled with 300m of clay overtime. This particular area suffered from severe liquefaction and due to this the already weak buildings collapsed under ground shaking. Another unequal social and economic impact was income, households based on subsistence farming in rural areas were badly affected this is because stored grains were destroyed, and paddy-planting season was about to start. The harvesting of the maize and rice was already disappointing and the loss of the livestock (40,000 chickens and 17,000 cattle) meant immediate hardship. It was estimated that an extra 700,000 people will be in poverty in 2015/16. The final major unequal impact was gender, due to females being in their houses around the time of the earthquake, more females of all ages died. Women were severely impacted as water was destroyed and sanitation infrastructure required females to walk longer distances making little time for any other economic activities. Poverty suddenly dropped as a result of the earthquake and lack of opportunities opens a greater risk to crimes such as child trafficking and abuse. 

Immediate and Long-term responses

Before the disaster struck politically, Nepal was finding it difficult to keep up and meet the demands in a peace process after a 10-year long conflict. Therefore, development economically and humanitarian concerns have been overshadowed by the attainment of peace. Approximately 25.2% of its population live below the poverty line. These exact people who are living below the line tend to live in rural areas. So, the recovery following this event was vital for Nepal. Furthermore, in the event that another disaster strikes The Nepalese government would have to change their strategy in order to lessen any impacts. Firstly, those who had dead family members received NPR 100,000.00 (£710) from the Nepalese Government in order to aid any cremation or funeral costs. Any families which had their houses damaged and needed to desperately build their homes received financial aid form the government and were granted the facilities to be able to take out any loans necessary. The Nepalese government had a strategy put into place whereby they set out to rebuild everything with certain techniques ensuring that any new buildings would be earthquake proof and had set out to also rebuild ant monuments that held a heritage value, for example temples which may have been affected. In order to do so would require a lot of money, to fund this the government set up a National Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Fund, their first objective being to raise $2 billion (approximately £2.3 billion). Another objective which the government had to tackle was the education and knowledge of several tips regarding health, rehabilitation, relief, health along with safety. Critical meeting was held between important world leaders and the government hence coming up with an appropriate set of rules that will support those who were severely affected. A list of rules was produced stating anything concerning the recovery as well as any essentials should be available at no cost, children who were now orphans due to the earthquake should be given free education and suitable accommodation, restoring buildings to their improved version requires them to follow certain building regulations such as the National Building Code 2060. By improving these buildings majorly lessens the death toll caused by the earthquake but also reduces any damage costs. For those who passed away during this tragedy should have memorials built for them.

Responses

The rescue operations held by the Nepalese Government was mainly based on the National Disaster Response Framework 2013, in answer to the international aid offered altogether 34 countries united with 16 non-military and 18 military teams. The sum of people able to help within approximately 12 hours was 4521 people. The response team concluded of engineers, medical professionals, urban search-and-rescue teams and air support personnel. The Nepalese Government failed to conduct an initial assessment of their abilities so they could offer a rapid emergency response. In turn this caused organisation errors as several groups of aid were coming into cities however the places which required a larger amount of aid didn’t receive it due to the lack of people available to offer their services. An ideal example for this was that the airports had the resources to tackle hunger, but they only had items of food which were canned. Canned food isn’t appropriate for the culture that is in Nepal. Pathranarakul and Shreshta indicated that to reduce the effects and ensure the responses are quickened the government should finance the improvement of a natural disaster policy this includes further training, frequent drills so the population know what to expect. In addition to this, they should include a fair approach where all the materials needed are effectively allocated where needed. Finally, they also advise that they have a clear plan when it comes to healthcare alongside funding better equipment. While this may be true, Waidyanatha argued that the poor contact between the search-and-rescue teams and the population of Nepal that’s in need of aid is the reason for the multiple delays. They gave the proposal that the Nepalese government ought to access telecom survivability and accessibility to assist a strong Government Emergency Communications (GEOC), improve the rapid restoration of access to telecommunications (RREACT) system for stability of emergency communications and a pilot-test a Cross-Agency Situational Awareness (CASA) policy and Incident Command and Control (ICCS) in provision of emergency management. Finally, Sanderson declares the humanitarian response has to be influenced by the readiness for any newer revolution for instance ensuring that all emergency materials have been efficiently provided and is fairly distributed and any training that has taken place prior to the disaster. 

Conclusion

To conclude, all the authors have recognized several flaws in the emergency response of the 2015 Nepal Earthquake such as the government undermining the problem at hand, the lack of communications between groups which results in detrimental impacts. Moreover, each author has provided the solutions for the government to improve upon.