Impacts of the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake: Lessons Learnt from Nepal

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
Chapter
Impacts of the 2015 Gorkha
Earthquake: Lessons Learnt from
Nepal
ShivaSubedi and Meen Bahadur PoudyalChhetri
Abstract
Nepal is highly vulnerable to a number of disasters for example: earthquakes,
floods, landslides, fires, epidemics, avalanches, windstorms, hailstorms, lightning, gla-
cier lake outburst floods, droughts and dangerous weather events. Among these disas-
ters—earthquake is the most- scary and damaging. The effects of a disaster, whether
natural or human induced, are often long lasting. The Gorkha earthquake of 25 April
2015 enormously affected human, socio-economic and other multiple sectors and
left deep scars mainly in the economy, livelihood and infrastructure of the country.
Besides the natural factors, the damages from disasters in Nepal are in increasing trend
due to the human activities and inadequate proactive legislations. Fundamentally, the
weak structures have been found as the major cause of damage in earthquakes. This
underlines the need for strict compliance of building codes. Thus, proactive disaster
management legislation focusing on disaster preparedness is necessary. This paper
analyses and shows the critical gaps and responsible factors that would contribute
towards seismic risk reduction to enable various stakeholders to enhance seismic
safety in Nepal. Additionally, this chapter aims to pinpoint the deficiencies in disaster
management system in Nepal with reference to the devastating Gorkha earthquake
and suggest appropriate policy and advanced technical measures for improvement.
Keywords: earthquake, proactive, impact, management, legislation
. Introduction
Nepal is facing the fury of natural and human induced disasters with greater
frequency and intensity. Disasters are so pervasive in every Nepalese geographic and
societal framework that the people are mostly in the verge of known and unknown
disasters. The earthquake of 1934, 1980, 1988, 2015 and the flood of July 1993, 2008,
1913, 2014 and 2017AD are the most destructive disasters which not only caused
heavy losses to human lives and physical properties but also adversely affected the
development process of the country. The lessons of the earthquakes of 1988 and 2015
and the floods and landslides of 1993, 2008, 2013, 2014 and 2017 have cautioned
the concerned authorities and agencies for a coordinated disaster preparedness and
response mechanism. Climate change, on the other hand, has become ‘extreme.’
Nepal is ranked as the fourth most climate vulnerable country in the world in the
climate change vulnerability index [1]. Fire is another disaster which occurs on
a regular basis and wild fires are damaging to already severely exhausted forests
and biodiversity of Nepal which results on economic loss, land degradation and

Earthquakes - Impact, Community Vulnerability and Resilience

Figure 1.
Location of Nepal and showing the seismically active zones along the Himalaya and the surrounding region [2].
environmental pollution. The government data show that since the year 2000, annu-
ally, an average of 329 people lost their lives due to various disasters and property
loss of more than 1 billion rupees. Hence, Nepal is considered as the ‘hot spot’ of
disasters.
It is evident that earthquakes do not kill people; rather the weak structures kill
the people. Hence, if we stay in a well-constructed earthquake resistant building
and the surroundings, we can live safely even in an earthquake prone area. Hence,
people living in an earthquake prone country like Nepal must consider of this
simple but basic fact. Many countries of the developed world, like Japan, Canada,
and USA also have faced several large earthquakes in the past but, when we compare
the number of casualties and property losses between the developed and developing
countries, the damage is many times higher in the latter. This difference is mainly
due to the levels of preparedness between them. In general, disaster preparedness
is still not in the priority list of the developing countries like Nepal; as a result, they
pay relatively higher price in terms of loss of lives and infrastructures.
. Historical trend of earthquakes in Nepal
Nepal was placed at the eleven-top earthquake vulnerable countries in the world,
paralleled as sitting on a time-bomb. Kathmandu, the capital city, is considered
as one of the most vulnerable city in the world; and is being put on a red alert. No
earthquake had hit the city for over eight decades and was thus considered overdue
for an earthquake to occur. Records show that since 1255AD Nepal experienced
19 earthquakes with significantly large impacts. The last two big earthquakes
that hit Nepal were that of 1833 (7.7 Magnitude, killed 414 people) and 1934 (8.3
Magnitude, killed 8519 people). The other earthquakes that occurred in 1980in Far
Western Nepal (6.5 Magnitude, killed 103 people), and in 1988in Eastern Nepal (6.5
Magnitude, killed 721 people) were comparatively much smaller in magnitude [2, 3].

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Impacts of the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake: Lessons Learnt from Nepal
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.85322
The most recent one, we Nepalese people experienced is the 2015 Gorkha-Nepal
earthquake which has left a trail of miseries that the affected people will continue to
combat for years.
Nepal is a small mountainous country in the South Asia, which lies at the center
of the 2500km long Himalayan range. The entire Himalayan terrain and its sur-
roundings is a highly active seismic zone on earth (Figure ). Nepal’s proximity to
earthquake hazard is mainly due to her young and fragile geology. Haphazard and
unplanned settlements and poor construction practices are the other factors that
have made her highly vulnerable to earthquakes. Earthquake is the biggest threat to
Nepal as it has encountered 19 major earthquakes since the twelfth century.
. Gorkha earthquake 
The devastating Gorkha Earthquake measuring to 7.8ml having the epicenter
occurred near Barpak village of Gorkha district which is 181km northwest of
Kathmandu on 25 April 2015. It was the worst quake to hit the country after the
1934 mega earthquake (8.3ml). On 12 May 2015, a 6.8ml strong aftershock caused
further damage and sufferings. These earthquakes took the lives of 8970 people
where 198 people are missing, and 22,303 people were seriously injured. The earth-
quakes destroyed 604,930 houses completely and 288,856 houses were partially
damaged. It is estimated that the total value of the damages caused by the earth-
quakes is NPR 706 billion or equivalent to US$ 7 billion [4]. More than 800,000
people displaced by the earthquake in Nepal were struggled to survive in a context
of persistent, a severe lack of safe and adequate housing [5].
Mostly, old, non-engineered, adobe and masonry buildings collapsed and/or were
severely damaged by the earthquake. In addition, some engineered buildings also
damaged or collapsed due to poor workmanship and quality of construction materials.
Figure 2.
Human deaths by Gorkha-Nepal earthquake.

Earthquakes - Impact, Community Vulnerability and Resilience

Figure 3.
Collision of Indian plate and Eurasian plate. (a) Before the collusion: Subducting Indian plate (left) under
Asian plate (right). The gradually closing Tethys sea lies between the two plates. (b) Rise of the Himalaya and
Tibet after the collision of the two plates. Indian plate still continues to subduct under Tibet. (c) Progressive
northward movement of the Indian plate from near South Pole to the present location.
The earthquake severely affected 14 districts (Gorkha, Dhading, Rasuwa, Nuwakot,
Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Bhaktapur, Kavrepalanchowk, Sindhupalchowk, Dolakha,
Sindhuli, Makawanpur, Ramechhap and Okhaldhunga) and another 31 districts
affected to varying extents. In this way, this devastating earthquake has affected vast
parts of Nepal and left deep scars in the economy and infrastructure of the country.
The 25 April earthquake was followed by a number of aftershocks throughout
Nepal, with one shock reaching a magnitude of 6.7 on 26 April at 12:54am local
time. The 25 April earthquake affected the entire Nepal and also affected some parts
of India, Bangladesh and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. Tremors were also
felt in Bhutan and Pakistan. All these major earthquakes proved the fact that the
casualties were mainly due to the failure of infrastructures.
On 26 April 2015, the Government of Nepal declared the 14 districts as disas-
trous area and called for international humanitarian assistance (Figure ) [2].
. Some scientific facts behind the Himalayan earthquakes
The Himalayan Mountain was formed by the crash between the Indian plate,
and the Eurasian plate consisting of nearly the entire continents of Europe and
Asia. Once the vast sea-floor of Tethys that lay between the Indian and Asian
continents, was subducted and consumed underneath Eurasia some 50 million
years ago, the northern edge of Indian sub-continent reached the southern shore
of Eurasia to collide.

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Impacts of the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake: Lessons Learnt from Nepal
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.85322
Nowadays, the Indian crust has reached far to the north beneath Eurasia that
caused the uplift of the region, and ultimately created the Himalaya (i.e., “For
example, see “in Figure ” the north beneath Eurasia (Tibet)”). Gradually, the
powerful push of the Indian continental crust forced itself to break into slices at a
depth and created a lower and upper-blocks. The breaking plane separating these
two blocks of the Indian crust is called the Main Himalayan Thrust (MHT). This
gently northward sloping fault in the Indian crust reaches beneath the Tibetan
Plateau which is shown in Figure .
Now, India continues to move towards north at a speed of about 5cm/year, and
this movement constantly creates a stress build up within the Himalayan region. As
a result, it causes to store enormous amount of energy within it. “For example-the
breaking of the Indian crust into the lower and the upper blocks along the Main
Himalayan Thrust (MHT). During an earthquake the block below the MHT will
slip to the north beneath Tibet and the upper block moves to the south. The MHT
emerges at the Main Frontal Thrust (MFT) [3] .”
Figures  and  and the text related thereof have been extracted from the article
of Professor Dr. Bishal Nath Upreti which has been cited below in Ref. [3].
On 12 May 2015 at 12:50 local time another strong aftershock measuring 7.3
Magnitudes struck with the epicenter in Sunkhani of Dolkha district. The epicenter
was just 76km northeast from the Kathmandu. This area was already affected
by the jolt of 25 April’s earthquake. The initial quake was followed by several
aftershocks. This quake toppled already weakened buildings, triggered a series of
landslides, which further hindered relief efforts. This quake alone killed more than
100 people [2].
The movement of tectonic plates that triggered massive earthquake in the
country on 25 April caused the altitude of Kathmandu Valley to increase by 80cm.
In total 438 numbers of aftershocks with local magnitude ≥4 have been recorded till
6 March 2016 [6].
As shown in Table , it is estimated that the total loss by the Gorkha earthquake
is NPR 706 billion (US$ 7 billion) [2, 4].
Figure 4.
The breaking of the Indian crust into the lower and the upper blocks along the Main Himalayan Thrust
(MHT). During an earthquake the block below the MHT will slip to the north beneath Tibet and the upper
block moves to the south. The MHT emerges at the Main Frontal Thrust (MFT).

Earthquakes - Impact, Community Vulnerability and Resilience

Figure 5.
Map depicting more than 100 aftershocks that have occurred since the magnitude 7.8 earthquake in Nepal on
April 25, 2015. To date, the largest aftershock is a magnitude 7.3 on May 12. The 1833 and 1934 stars represent
the most recent large historical earthquakes on this portion of the plate boundary.
. Causes and consequences of Gorkha earthquake
The 2015 Gorkha Nepal earthquake took place in between the boundary of
Indian tectonic plate and the Eurasian plate. The two plates stuck together by
friction building up energy that only a major earthquake could release. Increasing
population, unplanned settlements, poor construction practices, untrained human
resource, lack of search and rescue equipment and medical services are the other
major reasons of the devastating earthquakes.
Some scientists believe that the Gorkha earthquake did not release all the stress that
had built up underground and some of this stress has shifted west to an area stretch-
ing from the west of Pokhara in Nepal to the north of Delhi in India. The research is
Particulars Number/amount
Persons dead 8970
Missing 198
Injured 22,302
Affected families 8,86,456
Displaced families 6,49,815
Houses damaged (fully) 6,04,930
Houses damaged (partially) 2,88,856
Total material loss (in US $) 7 billion
Table 1.
Losses due to the Gorkha-Nepal earthquake [2].

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Impacts of the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake: Lessons Learnt from Nepal
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.85322
published in the journals Nature Geoscience and Science. Its authors say more moni-
toring is now needed in this area. Therefore, there is already long overdue of a major
earthquake. The last mega earthquake happened in 1505 which is estimated to have
exceeded M8.5. The scholars say the new stress that has moved as there could already
be accumulating to the tension that has been building up over five centuries [6, 7].
Figure  reflected above clearly indicates the scale of the 25 April 2015 Gorkha-
Nepal Earthquake and the major aftershocks of 12 May 2016. Tremors which
scattered in various area (has been highlighted in red color) what felt or noticed
by many people inside and outside the buildings. These effects corresponded to an
intensity with a high magnitude.
. Problems related to the Gorkha-Nepal earthquake
Although the Nepalese security forces, volunteers and others worked hard- days
and nights, the response work was as not well organized and prompt. A key criti-
cism was of a slow and inadequate relief effort, which failed to reach in due time to
many of the affected people of remote, rural and hilly areas. It was basically because
of the lack of road network, transport resources, and adverse weather condition.
Major delays were also caused by bureaucratic procedures and even bitter mutual
accusations - both in public and private—over who was to blame and who should
be in control of funds and resources. Thousands of people in the affected districts
were lacking basic needs. Rainy season and cold-winter and morbidity caused the
earthquake victims daily life much more difficult.
On the other hand, the earthquake victims repeatedly complained that the rice
distributed in some districts by the food distributing organizations (World Food
Program (WFP) through Nepal Red Cross Society (NRCS) was “substandard and
inedible” as highlighted by the media from time to time, which also caused in dete-
riorating health status of the earthquake victims in the vulnerable settlements and;
led to increase more morbidity [2]. There were high number of injured people or
caseload recorded during the first day, so the orthopedic service and treatment was
the most urgent for majority of patients after earthquake. However, the proportion
of reported death at hospitals was relatively low [8].
In addition, there was a painful moment of family isolation, and collective
cremation as most of the family members could not follow the ritual practice in that
emergency which is so vital in human life from cultural and religious point of view.
. International cooperation and disputes
For any government, it would be difficult to cope alone with such a huge
disaster. In such a situation, international assistance is important for response
and recovery works. So, on 26 April 2015, the Government of Nepal declared an
emergency in the worst affected districts and called for international humani-
tarian assistance. However, it is more difficult in Nepal due to some of its inac-
cessible landscape and difficult terrain. Unfortunately, it risks adding a human
induced calamity to a devastating natural disaster. During the mission of search
and rescue efforts, an American helicopter crashed near the Nepal-China border
resulting in the sad demise of five American soldiers, two Nepali soldiers and five
disaster victims.
In course of the response phase, the relationship between Nepal government
and the international community was not encouraging. There was the problem of
mutual trust and allegation between the two sides. The international communities
did not fully trust the government; questioning its ability to deliver services while

Earthquakes - Impact, Community Vulnerability and Resilience

the government wasn’t happy because the donor communities wanted to distribute
relief assistance through their agents whereas Nepalese government sought any
assistance to be collected into the Prime Minister Relief Aid Fund and then dis-
tribute to the affected areas. Actually, the government wanted to adopt one door
policy. However, the relationship between the Nepal Government and International
Community did improve as time elapsed.
. Foreign aid commitments
There was a donor community meeting on 25 June 2015in Kathmandu, Nepal.
The highest-profile international donor conference ever held in the country amassed
more than 300 delegates from 56 nations, development partners and the donor
community. In a major boost to Nepal’s reconstruction and recovery efforts, develop-
ment partners and the donor community have pledged $4.4 billion in aid during the
International Conference. This has come as a huge relief to the reconstruction and
recovery bid and brought cheers to the government. However, till now, except a small
portion, the committed amount has not been provided by the international commu-
nity to the Government of Nepal [2].
. Formation of reconstruction authority
A high-level National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) has been formed
under the chairmanship of Prime Minister (PM), including four ministers
picked by PM, a chief executive officer, Vice-chairperson of the National
Planning Commission, Chief Secretary and three experts having 15years of
experience in related field. The roles and responsibilities of the NRA are to find
out the total loss from the Gorkha earthquake; acquire necessary land following
legal procedures; order concerned authority to remove physical structures after
providing compensation to the owners; coordinate with different bodies for
effective implementation of reconstruction work; order owners to remove their
damaged structures or to remove them at their own cost; and direct the con-
cerned agencies to accomplish necessary work of recovery providing them with
necessary budget.
. In post-earthquake recovery and reconstruction progress
Within exactly 2 hours, the Central Natural Disaster Relief (CNDRC)
Committee headed by the Acting Prime Minister met and declared a state of
emergency and commenced the Search and Rescue (SAR) and relief operations.
During a disaster, obviously, the priority was to save lives and providing medical
support to the injured. In this respect, the government of Nepal did well. However,
when it came to the relief works, it was caught in a midst of heavy criticism; and
which was not without reason. Lack of proper management of relief goods, weak
distribution mechanism, alleged corruption in procurement of tarpaulin sheets,
tents for shelter and food etc. added up to the chaos in relief work. Even the capital
city where the Command and Control Centre was functioning, and all relief
supplies landed at the nearby airport, people did suffer due to inadequate manage-
ment of relief work. The performance outside the capital was even poorer [3].
The chaos continued for weeks and months. Even 3 months after the earthquake
when rainy season had already begun, majority of the people lacked shelter. It is
also important to note that the following five phases were adopted right after the
Gorkha earthquake:

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Impacts of the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake: Lessons Learnt from Nepal
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.85322
I. Search and rescue (as mentioned in above paragraph).
II. Humanitarian relief work (immediate treatment, water, sanitation, shelter,
food and protection).
III. Early recovery part (rehabilitation of schools, regaining access to health
service, restarting and restarting business as usual).
IV. Recovery and reconstruction (restructuring homes, buildings, infrastructure
development etc.).
V. Long-term socio-economic development process (restoring income,
improving livelihood and so on).
The recovery efforts are still underway in post-disaster setting. All identified
recovery and reconstruction activities were expected to be completed on time,
but it is being slow. The livelihood recovery strategy is being followed as a two-
pronged approach—a livelihood restoration package and employment creation.
Similarly, owner driven reconstruction, integrated habitat approach, relocation
of village, urban reconstruction to improve cultural settlement, cash transfer,
community outreach, social inclusion and capacity build-up are main aspects.
The NRA coordinating for interacting with the NGOs and civil society organiza-
tions and implement specific measures in partnership with these agencies were
important policy approaches adopted during the rehabilitation and recovery phase
[9]. Despite the claimed of lots of tasked achieved, many studies pointed out
that satisfactory results have not been achieved as expected with NRA and much
remain to be done.
In a big disaster, when the initial phase of SAR and immediate relief operations
are over, rehabilitation and reconstruction phase begins seriously. For a successful
implementation of this phase, a national government must show a firm commit-
ment, careful planning and adequate resource mobilization. Rehabilitation and
reconstruction is a long-term process, require a huge investment and it may last for
years to complete. A low-income country like Nepal also needs to ensure financial
resources not only from its internal resource but also through grants from interna-
tional bi-lateral and multilateral agencies.
. Recovery from  Gorkha earthquake: still long way to go
Several efforts have heightened in post-earthquake scenario since 2015, by the
government with support from international and national partners. Three years after
the catastrophic earthquake left a pain for the society, and an equal number of injured,
this traumatized nation appears to be in a bit recovery mode now; a 45% of the quake-
damaged houses have been rebuilt, and another 32% of houses are under construction
[9] as of December 2018. The NRA has signed the government’s private housing grant
agreement with 742,135 beneficiaries, out of which 337,319 have completed rebuilding
their houses while 233,343 houses are currently under construction. Seventy seven per-
cent of the earthquake-damaged houses are already rebuilt or being rebuilt, and people
have taken ownership of this reconstruction campaign. 4172 out of the 7553 earthquake-
damaged schools have been rebuilt, and another 2498 schools are under construction.
The post-earthquake reconstruction could not gain momentum immediately due
to institutional constraints and the lack of adequate resources. At the beginning,
the absence of elected representatives of people at local levels and the lack of clear
policies and procedures also slackened the speed of reconstruction.

Earthquakes - Impact, Community Vulnerability and Resilience

Many people were exposed to risks due to poor shelter, poor hygiene, and
trauma. Moreover, people did not receive recovery support immediately, and had
to spend monsoon season without a house. Since political commitment has always
been weak in Nepal, leaders often focused on party politics and direct their effort to
change the government [10]. Consequently, weak government and leadership have
direct effect in the reconstruction and recovery efforts.
As Nepal was moving towards a new administrative set up and election process
at that time, leaders could not give enough attention to reconstruction and recovery
efforts. Some weaknesses found in planning, coordination and management which
need to be improved in the future [11]. The process of reconstruction of health
facilities became a bit slow than expectation.
The slow progress of post-earthquake reconstruction is in part the outcomes of
resonant socio-political scuffles in the Nepali society identified mainly by following
reasons. Firstly, political dysfunction has worsened in the post-earthquake time,
and secondly, the lack of trust between the State and NGOs has led to many possible
reconstruction projects being turned down.
In the international context of emergency and system resilience, Professor
Deborah MC Farland from Emory University, said, “the trust is one of the most
important prerequisites for resilient health/system in any emergency or disaster. In
her presentation, she evidently linked this example with Ebola outbreak of 2015. A
community where engagement and ownership are the keys to building the resilient
system which is important to strengthen at the time of system breakdown” [12].
Congruently, we observed some gaps on mutual trust among government, commu-
nity and stakeholders in terms of system recovery process herein Nepal during the
phases of post-earthquake.
In other words, post-disaster governance has played a crucial role in the recon-
struction performance [13]. However, the slow reconstruction pace has been met
with substantial criticism both inside and outside Nepal, and many organizations,
including donors, have urged the Nepali government to accelerate the reconstruc-
tion and the delivery of grants.
The dearth of progress strongly contrasts with the promises what made at the
time of donors’ conference held in June 2015, in Kathmandu. During this conclave,
donor countries pledged nearly about 4.1 billion USD for the long-term recovery of
Nepal after having made serious discussion on cross-sectoral part, a level of com-
mitment that surprised many, and covers just under half of the 9.18 billion USD the
Nepali government now expects will be required to rebuild the country. In return,
the Nepali government promised to establish a national reconstruction authority
that centrally governs all the reconstruction efforts; and to safeguard all the activi-
ties they carry out expeditiously and impartially. Certainly, the government was
able to quickly map the needs and damage immediately aftermath of the earthquake
and communicate those needs to intercontinental contributors mainly for fund,
which was promising. This makes it even more unsatisfactory that the rebuilding
progress has been slow, despite the availability of wide resources [14].
As a matter of fact, there are several factors responsible for the slow recovery
such as—the dominance of government control, weak governance, lengthy bureau-
cratic process, lack of long-term commitment among NGOs and wait-and-see
attitudes of the affected people—all these things weaken the community’s capacity
and ability to rebound. In a resource-poor community, public involvement from
inhabitants, NGOs and private sectors are crucial for post-disaster recovery cycle.
An encouraging framework to govern NGOs that should have developed by the
Nepal government so that they could have mobilized others to help the residents to
rebuild their communities. Poor coordination among major reconstruction actors
also influenced the promptness of work in terms of recovery work.


Impacts of the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake: Lessons Learnt from Nepal
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.85322
In such a way, the slow pace of progress has been blamed on a number of factors
from the political willingness, to the lack of legal or administrative, resource and
technical stuffs. Likewise, structural problems remain the same and we are too late
in accomplishing the task in due time.
. Strengths, gaps and challenges
There were psychosocial consequences of that devastating earthquake disaster.
The nightmare and traumatic situation caused by the disaster upon many people
particularly among the children and adolescents are still going on and may remain
further. The below mentioned gaps and challenges were identified after the
earthquake:
• Nepalese people showed resilient capacity and self-recovery from the
earthquake.
• Search and Rescue (SAR) works carried out by the security personnel of Nepal
and others was commendable although it was slow and inadequate while they
failed to reach in due time in the remote, rural and hilly areas. It was also com-
pounded by the lack of equipment, road network, transport, and well-trained
human resources.
• Damage and need assessment was delayed.
• Gap between the need of the affected people and delivery of services was
predominant all the time.
• Open spaces for temporary settlement of the displaced population were also
lacking.
• Although there were 4521 foreign team members from 34 countries, they were
able to save only 16 lives. So the performance of the international SAR team is
not encouraging.
• Emergency warehouses, prepositioning of relief materials with proper inven-
tory were also lacking.
• Debris management was found as one of the big problem basically because of
the lack of debris management equipment, tools and techniques.
• Accurate and proper communication between District Emergency Center
(DEOC) and Central Emergency Operation Centre (CEOC) was not effective.
• A weak database and an absence of modern technology were other bottlenecks
for effective response during Gorkha earthquake.
• Cumbersome administrative process between the government, donor agencies,
contract agencies and beneficiaries were one of the problems to set-up the pre-
fab buildings which delayed in restoring the schools and health facilities.
• Lack of local technical persons/technicians for fixing up pre-fabricated
building/s.

Earthquakes - Impact, Community Vulnerability and Resilience

. Lessons learnt from the Gorkha earthquake
• Lack of awareness, preparedness as well as coordination among disaster
management stakeholders was evident.
• Weak law enforcement and monitoring of building codes and town planning
and lack of training for professionals in earthquake resistant construction
practices have been found as the major factors of infrastructure dam-
age; lack of adequate preparedness and response capacity among various
stakeholders.
• The biggest lesson is that to be safe from earthquake is to build earthquake
resistant infrastructures. There should be no COMPROMISE in building
compliance.
• Arrangement of appropriate and essential equipment/s based on the nature of
disaster can assist for the quick search and rescue works.
• Modern technology and strategic communication/risk mapping/satellite map-
ping/earth observation are also important tools and techniques in reducing the
disaster risks; and in life-saving.
All most all casualties were due to the collapsed infrastructures. This emphasizes
the need for strict compliance of town planning bye-laws and building codes in
Nepal.
. The takeaway message
Nepal should adopt long-term and sustainable efforts to mitigate the hazards
occurring following the major disasters, for instance, the devastating Gorkha earth-
quake. Even though disaster management and risk reduction may be considered
expensive in view of the competing demands for resources in a developing country
like Nepal, this is high time for the government to invest into preparing for and
responding to expected and unexpected disasters before the human and economic
consequences of inaction are extensive, and unmanageable. This book chapter
suggests some basic principles and guidelines to reduce the impact of the potential
future earthquake disaster not only in Nepal but also for other earthquake prone
countries as well. Following are the basic and fundamentals for earthquake manage-
ment in Nepal and beyond:
• Construction of earthquake resistant infrastructures.
• Licensing system for engineers and masons.
• Selective seismic strengthening and retrofitting of existing structures and life-
line structures – a priority list for structural safety audit, seismic strengthening
and retrofitting is required.
• Effective implementation of Building Code and other legislations.
• Mass awareness and preparedness.

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Impacts of the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake: Lessons Learnt from Nepal
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.85322
• Capacity development through education, training, research & development
(R&D).
• Data collection, documentation and information sharing.
• Effective and efficient response during and after emergency.
• Build Back Better (BBB).
• Strengthening a society with social, capital and community resilience would be
the safe and sustainable approach against disasters.
• Effective disaster governance is highly necessary not only during response
phase but also important to capacitate the institutional efficiency in all phases
(preparedness, response recovery and reconstruction) through technical and
institutional strength.
• Public and private partnership for DRR ensures the risk management and
developmental activities in the affected communities via small-micro-
entrepreneurship (i.e., trained local people can support to other community’s
reconstruction process).
• To provide psycho-social support for the traumatized persons, disabled, and
body part amputated people is very important. As it is long term and directly
associated with the family, and his or her individual livelihood, it is needed
to pre-plan from the respective government in post-disaster context from the
humanitarian point of view.
The above basics are necessary to reduce the impact of earthquakes in the
short-term, medium-term and long-term. They recognize the enormous challenge
in improving seismic safety because of the inadequate numbers of trained and
qualified civil engineers, structural engineers, architects and masons proficient in
earthquake-resistant design and construction of structures [2].
Despite some efforts made from Government, local people, INGOs, NGO in reducing
risk reduction, disaster specific needs, priorities and plans have not been well addressed
from disaster management perspective.
. Conclusions
The Nepalese and their neighbors and friends all over the globe, have to reconcile
themselves to the fact that tens of kilometers beneath where they live, the Indian and
Eurasian plates will continue to tussle. Hence, they must build on the fundamental
strengths they possess—social capital and community resilience. In mega disasters,
a nation can be socially and economically affected not just for days or months, but
for years. Effective implementation of Building Codes to make earthquake resistant
buildings and other infrastructures is highly desirable. Educating the people to Build
Back Better (BBB) must be the motto of the government. Henceforth, the govern-
ment should call on experts inside and outside the country to engage in interdisci-
plinary collaboration for BBB.Non-governmental organizations, the private sector,
experts, intellectuals, media and international community can contribute in the
rebuilding and disaster-preparation efforts by working together.

Earthquakes - Impact, Community Vulnerability and Resilience

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms
of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no any competing interests.
Limitation
This chapter may not cover earthquake impact associated all the cross-cutting
sectors what readers can expect.
Author details
ShivaSubedi1,2,3,4* and Meen Bahadur PoudyalChhetri5,6,7,8,9
1 Nepal Red Cross Society (NRCS), Nepal
2 Oviedo University, Spain
3 Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
4 Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH), Basel University,
Switzerland
5 Nepal Centre for Disaster Management (NCDM), Kathmandu, Nepal
6 Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, Australia
7 Paper Review Committee, The International Emergency Management Society
(TIEMS), Brussels, Belgium
8 Himalaya Conservation Group (HCG), Lalitpur, Nepal
9 Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT), Bhaktapur,
Nepal
*Address all correspondence to: ssubedi2011@gmail.com


Impacts of the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake: Lessons Learnt from Nepal
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.85322
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