World News]: Kathmandu, Jan 15 : Should a quake measuring 8 on the Richter scale hit quake-prone Nepal, it would kill more than 40,000 people and leave 100,000 to 200,000 injured.

The National Publicity Committee for Earthquake Safety Day has warned that a fresh quake would raze 60 percent of the buildings, rendering 60,000 to 90,000 people homeless.

Nepal ranks 11th among the list of the most earthquake- prone countries with its past history predicting a major tremor every 70 to 75 years.

Seven years ago, on this day, Nepal observed the First Earthquake Safety Day to remember the nearly 11,000 people who died in an earthquake in 1934 and to initiate measures to minimise losses should a killer jolt strike again.

With the population of capital city Kathmandu growing by 6.5 percent annually and nearly 6,000 new houses being built every year, if an earthquake similar to the one in 1934 strikes the damage would be far more extensive.

The National Seismological Centre of Kathmandu, established in 1979 by the government in collaboration with the Laboratoire de G?ophysique, France, paints an apocalyptic vision should a quake recur.

According to the centre, western and central Nepal, including Kathmandu Valley and popular tourist destination Pokhara, are the most likely to have an earthquake.

While the quake would trigger landslides in the mountains, in the plains, the soil, which already has high water content, will become like quicksand, toppling buildings.

The international and domestic airports will be out of order, access roads to the valley will be cut off and water supply, electricity and telephone lines will remain cut off for days to weeks.

There will be a major risk of fire, caused by explosions due to gas, petrol or leaks of chemical products.

While first aid from outside will take three to four days at least, epidemics are likely to break out due to bad sanitary conditions and decomposing of victims' corpses.

The nine-year-old insurgency will add to the woes. The army, preoccupied with combating the communist guerrillas, will find itself stretched to prevent pillaging, maintain law and order and coordinate first aid.

Since Nepal has a large number of tourists the year round, the Hotel Association of Nepal had drawn up an elaborate earthquake safety action plan for hotels, in collaboration with the National Seismological Centre and Department of Mines and Geology.

It had proposed establishing an Earthquake Emergency Committee headed by executives of large hotels or managers of guesthouses to liaise with embassies, the army, hospitals and medical personnel, and United Nations offices in case a quake occurred.

However, the plan seems to be gathering dust with tourists unaware of any such contingency.

--Indo-Asian News Service

The number is too random and its just a guess.
There is no systematic study.
There is no real earthquake risk zone mapping.
There is no real landslide risk mapping.
There is no real record of good and bad house (From earthquake point of view)
There is no real research institute to conduct such studies.
(There do exist a society, but without real research input).

Bottom line: Without risk zone mapping, you can not simply guess
what will be possible number of deaths.

You don't need a rocket scientist to tell us how catastrophic a 8.0 magnitude could do to Nepal.

http://www.sajha.com/sajha/html/OpenThread.cfm?forum=2&ThreadID=18681

not how but "what"

Well, when I was working in PWRI, Japan. Once we had a simulation
of an earthquake disaster and I was part of the simulation. The idea
might work for those who are concerned with what will happen to
their loved ones in Nepal and you want to know the information
(their whereabout) as early as possible. Let me give you the idea
as follows and if you like it, you may create a similar network for your own
use, don't rely on govt. resources.

In that earthquake simulation, Japanese PM was also involved and
I was supposed to be counted in his list of whereabouts of his employees
in that simulated post earthquake situation.

Early morning an Earthquake jolts somewhere in Central Japan.
Telephone rings in PM's residence. He tries to contact his deputies
and the pyramid expands. All peopels in chain were trained to telephone
to peoples under them, a few calls. The chain started. It continued
and some in the chain deliberately wer asked not to respond the telephone
call. The breakage in the pre-planned call was supposed to mean
someone there is missing or have something wrong. Thus, now peoples
in that network around that missing person were supposed to find
the whereabout of the person missing in the chain. So, the missing
person was reported back to the chain and the person immediately
above the chain has to decide what to do next, to rescue or find the
missing person. He sends another person in the chain closest to the
missing person to find the missing person and was asked to report
as early as possible. The search person goes to rescue his colleague
and finally reaches to the house, keep on reporting the status and
finally, finds the person in serious condition (part of simulation),
calls real ambulance and ambulance arrives late and .........
The simulation drama took almost a day. It was really a fun to
be part of simulation drama, but gave a real idea on what should
we do, though in the real event it won't be that easy, but the idea
will surely help at least to find if someone in the network is missing
and looking for help.

So, prepare your own list of network. Start now. Instead of working
at individual level, searching your all relatives by yourself, if you can
prepare a network and cross checks using telephone or personal
network, I am sure you can be confident about yourself and it will
rescue even in the worst disaster. Because someone out there within
your network will have telephone connection or mobile telephone,
that can be helpful to get you hooked to instead of trying to deal with
dead tel lines. ............ Act now, prepare your own network, not in your
memory only, but make a hard copy let every one in the network
keep a copy and be prepared to notify his / her whereabouts and
be prepared to find others in his network. This way you will not
have to rely on government. So that everyone knows whom to
report and whom to rescue.

Next step: Ask each family in your network to store following
things:

1. Packet of Instant Noodles at least enough for a week.
(if not spaghetti sticks enough for a week. Renew such
stored items every six month or so depending on the
expry date).
Or else, store canned foods for a week. or Chiura, khatte
or any thing like that you can afford to store. Keep either
bottled water/ tap water and replace periodically to make
sure that its hygenic. plus sugar, salt and cooking oil.

2. Spare fuels. at least to boil water and prepare the food.
3. Torch light. Check battery every 3-4 months and replace with new
set.
4. Match / Lighter. Candles.
5. Soap
6. One pan to cook things.
7. Whistle with neck strap (assign one to each person).
8. If some persons in the family are sick person, who need
medicine every day, keep at least 7day spare set. Replace with
new set every two to 3 month, to avoid date expiry.
9. Keep first aid help medical stuffs.

10. Map of the place: roads or widened section of the river
so that you can cross the bridge or assemble into open places.
(well, nepal being a small country, you don't have to worry in
this regard). Let kids know in case, you die and they can find
a safe place without your own help. The map to your house
can help kids explain someone to find your own house in case
you are trapped inside house and kids go out to find a help to
rescue you. Though it looks funny idea to have map, but
for volunteers who want to help you need such maps to find
your house by leaving your own kids at safe place.
Schools are usually safer in the sense that they have more
open space and advice your kids to move towards school,
because they know the route to school (In, kathmandu it
might not be true. Let kids know the public schools in
your locality, at least they have more open space, though
the buildings might not be safe to reside. Advice them to
avoid going inside the old public schools.

11. Telephone directory of your loved ones at least within
the chain. Including some volunteer organization, and
rehabiliation centers or information on schools.
12. calling card. or some extra money.
13. if possible safety helmet (well, in Nepal's context people
will think that I am making a fun. But, I am making my list
complete. Its upto you.
14. These are all based on the training programme that I
attended. If you like you can through it as rubbish idea,
but if you like it be disseminated and let others know the
idea. It might work.

Rest if anything pop up in my mind, I will add here.

GP

well gp ji ko post ta herenaa coz its soo long but i am sure he is saying truth....
hehe

I appreciate Adrian and GP's rather timely postings on this important topic.

One reason the fatalities said to have increased drastically in Gujarat earthquake a few years back was due to collapse of several buildings attributed to faulty construction. Obviously the faulty construction was due to weak monitoring and prevalent corruption practices in approving the construction.

From a haphazard construction point of view, even with a no so high Richter scale, we have a disaster in waiting.

In Gujarat, many of the construction contractors and those officials who were involved in monitoring and approving went ?underground? for fear of public wrath. Can we learn a lesson from the Gujarat earthquake before the time runs out or while those officials are still ?above the ground??

In developed world, its the fire that kills more people than the physical quake itself (fire in the Gas line), at least in Nepal we don't have to worry about it. but I would take GP's recommendation to be prepared in times of disaster and pass it along to loved one back home. Thanks GP.

I think that the list of the items for an emergency, especially for disaster
mentioned above can be really useful provided you are serious about it. Such
items can be replaced by a new set every six month. The idea of
creating your own network, keep informed to each other will also
be very handy in case of earthquake like disaster. At least teach
your kids what should they do if you are trapped inside the house
and they become without adult family members around them. In USA,
kids know POLICE and 911, but in Nepal both of them will not work.
(I remember a bus accident in Prithvi Highway, where my own teacher
died, the police who arrived very first did not help them, but snatched
jewelery and killed some peoples to get their belongings. In Damauli,
later I came to know a sub Inspector who made a huge amount of money
from that accident, peoples around the town knew it and told me).
A group of Thuggs will surely run around Kathmandu and you might be
victim if your kids fall in wrong hand. Just let them know: whom to trust
and whom not to trust. Well, some psychologists say that in the event
of disaster gangsters might even behave good, but thuggs might not,
as it was reported in the event of 9/11 that crimes in NY was reduced
substantially for a few days.

Now, lets talk about house in Nepal (based on personal observations).
The concrete framed house in Nepal are usually 3-4 four storey,
and are not heavily loaded because we don't have much furnitures
or things to keep in. These structures are to carry only their own
weight, as compared to live load. The walls are additional reinforcements
to these buildings. So, a framed structure if it has a tie beam at DPC
level, I hardly think the residents have to worry much, but they should
try to escape as early as possible. Most of the structures even if fail,
they need some reaction time (response time). But Masonary house
without RC frames are vulnerable to collapse instantly especially if they
are relatively tall: 2-3 storeys. A masonary walled house with a single
story with RBC / RCC roof will also not collapse instantly because the
roof slab works as a lateral force resistance, even if a section collapse
the roof will some extra time to collapse. RBC can be dangerous because
brick might split and fly like a tennis ball, but, RCC slab are relatively better.
In any case, you will probably get half minute of time before it collapses
, the response time (in small: not so tall buildings) . Masonary, espcially,
the telia brick (nick name: Chinese brick e.g. produced by Harisiddhi Ita
Karkhana or like that) and stones are highly vulnerable. The Chinese
Brick don't have groove that traditional Nepali bricks have, so these
traditional bricks though bad shaped, but are excellent bricks against
lateral force during earthquake provided cement mortar joint is there.

The risk in Kathmandu lies in core kathmandu where buildings are very old
and floors are made of wooden planks which may not resist lateral earthquake
force. Collapse of one building may result (like in that game D.... ) collapse in
series and other reason for large number of death might be because of
the scarcity of open space: where to escape? This was the question I
asked to Bhawan Bibhag D. Director General, who was the sessson chair in
that national conference of NEA. He did not have answer, answer was
"you asked a good question". Thats it. After the session, he came towards
me in corridor and introduced himself and tried to elaborate the answer ....
"you asked a very important question .... blah blah .... we are trying hard
.... to create open spaces. We always have scarcity of resources".

In fact, our Kathmandu town planning office
in KTM, gives permission to make house along a route that was supposed to be
a road as planned in 70s, by paying Rs. 5,000 ghus to the planners. A friend of
mine paid Rs. 5,000 and got a persmission...... How can you expect such
mismatching....... Peoples will have to pay for it. No open spaces mean no
way to escape.

I remember the case in Damauli where I stayed for about 2 years after my
SLC exam and I worked there as a primary teacher as pass time event. I had
a great time. During that two year, I saw Damauli as one of the well planned
town in Nepal. Unfortunately, the Jilla Savapati and his gang at that time
sold the open spaces designed by israelis in 70s. I still remember that the
original plan was so great that there used to be garage in each house and
every house should be at least 1 m far from another house. But, in 80s
the pakhe savapati did not have vision that peoples in 2000s will have car
in this town too. He did not stick to garage system. There were Chowks
for peoples and a lot of open spaces. He sold one after another in a couple
of houndred rupees, not even thousand. Now, I wonder whether Damauli
has even a fraction of the open space that the town planner designed at
that time.

Now, in Pokhara, the open spaces are gradually registered by politicians
or Panchayat and later by Kangressies and UML. Whatever left was occupied
by nakkali sukumbashies. Thanks to Americans later to Germans for the Cattle farm
that occupies a major part of open land around my own village. Thats
great thing. At least there is enough open space, so far.

Kathmandu seriously needs open spaces and without enough open spaces,
the death toll will go high because of lack of escape routes.

Well, Kathmandu now is like Rome around the end of Romans, who cares,
while everyone in power is trying to accumulate as much as they can.

GP

Related News: This should be a Warning!

Minor earthquake in Dolakha

A minor earthquake jolted Dolakha district of mid Nepal Tuesday morning, the Department of Seismology said. The quake was recorded 4.2 on the Richter scale.

According to the Department of Mines and Geology, the epicenter of the earthquake that occurred at 3.06 a.m. was a place called Nagpa. There are no reports of any damage from the earthquake. nepalnews.com pd Dec 28 04

Minor earthquake in Bajhang

A minor tremor measuring 5 on the Richter scale was recorded in Bajhang district at 2:28 p.m. on Sunday.

According to the Department of Mines and Geology, National Seismic Center, the tremor was around Surama lake of the district. nepalnews.com pd Jan 18 05