Each generation of Nepalis has seen a mahabhukampa, or a Great Earthquake. The last one was in 1934, which claimed a documented 3,400 lives. Lest you mistake, Sunday evening's was perhaps not one such. If and when, the next big one comes Kathmandu is going to take a bad knock, with a vast number of residents likely to face dire straits given the valley's poor infrastructure. According to the US Federal Emergency Management Agency, 80 per cent of all deaths caused by quakes are a result of poor structures. In that sense, there is perhaps no other capital city so vulnerable as Kathmandu. It has shown massive levels of unplanned constructions in the last decade or so. The growth of high-rises sitting on top of what used to be a lake-bed in an earth quake-prone Himalayan region makes for a deadly combination. What can then be done about this? Is it too late? Hopefully not. Yet, we need to take heed of the message delivered by the quake yesterday, the worst since 1934. The relatively light toll in the capital shouldn't distract us from the fact that it could easily have been worse, had the epicentre been say Kavre, Nuwakot or Sindhupalchowk.
For one, we need to strongly enforce building codes to make upcoming structures safe. And, for those already built and not meeting building standards, the agency concerned should give the developers/owners a time-line to improve on their structures for safety. The government should allocate funds, and mobilise donor agencies too, if need be. Second, we must internalise the fact that we live in a very seismically active zone. While not active as the plates underneath Japan, the tectonic plates under our feet have a habit of not sitting still. Even so, we are in denial of this scientific fact as a populace and continue to build structures without regard to geology. In fact, building standards in Kathmandu should be higher than that of many other places.
As a people, Nepalis tend to be fatalistic about approach to life. At every level-from home to office-we have come to accept that quakes, like most of everything else, is out of our control. That our life-or death-is pre-ordained, decided by fate. Otherwise, we go on to blame the government for everything, which again is unhelpful. The government can begin immediately to reach out to countries like Japan, which arguably has by far the best earthquake preparedness technology and experience in the world. Japanese schools, for example, start their first-day-of-class celebrations with an evacuation drill. Even the Prime Minster participates in drills. Nearly 24 hours into the quake and we still haven't heard from our Prime Minister.
A sizeable earthquake in Kathmandu will undoubtedly mean hundreds of thousands of deaths. Think of the scale of the Gujarat quake in 2001, the Indian Ocean quake in 2004, or the more recent and devastating Haiti quake of 2010 that took 222,570 lives. If we do not take measures now, we may find Nepal back in international headlines-and this time it won't be of photos of jubilation on the streets, but of piles of rubble and a devastated population. As Nepal's leading seismologist Prabin Mani Dixit has said, you do not die of earthquakes, you die of unsafe buildings.
Source: Special EDITORIAL (e-Kantipur.com)
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