Immediate Aid and Long-Term Recovery Efforts

In the wake of the recent Nepal earthquake, the distribution of immediate aid is at the forefront of response efforts made by the Nepali government, the United Nations, and other local and foreign aid organizations. However, long term recovery efforts are just as important in order to prevent a similar state of affairs in the event of the next natural disaster. The following post focuses on some of the immediate aid efforts as well as long-term resiliency measures that have been or are currently being employed throughout Nepal.

Funding: The United Nations Development Programme and the Government of Nepal have requested $415 million to fund necessary relief efforts for Nepal. The following are the objectives that are aimed to be met with this funding:

Immediate – Relief efforts include addressing needs for shelter, water, sanitation, emergency health, food and protection. In addition, the creation of “cash-for-work projects” that aim to provide jobs and an income to survivors while simultaneously providing immediate relief to the earthquake-stricken areas is also on the agenda.

Long-term – the UNDP also plans to support the Nepali government in determining and implementing measures that will help reduce the impact of future natural disasters and increase the resilience of communities.

Building Codes
Long-term – Nepal and the United Nations Development Programme together created a recommended national building code. The code was established in 1994. However, employing the new code into practice has been slow and, unfortunately, the code had not implemented in the design of many of the recently constructed buildings.

Education and action
Long-term – Geohazards International (GHI) has embarked on a project called “Kathmandu Valley Earthquake Risk Management” that focuses on jump-starting the effort of making Kathmandu valley a more resilient community by improving earthquake disaster management, raising awareness of the earthquake risks, and strengthening local organizations such as the National Society for Earthquake Technology – Nepal (NSET) to continue the work they have begun. The project was launched in 1999.

For more details, check out the GHI Kathmandu initiative Action Plan.

Science and technology
Immediate – Scientists at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Kathmandu are monitoring landslides and dammed rivers. They pass this information along to the Nepalese government and relief agencies to help coordinate operations in areas with potential hazards.

Long-term – The scientists will be re-evaluating their research priorities to adapt with the earthquake-changed landscape. They hope to capture the new risks and set up early warning systems by way of remote-sensing technology and field investigation.

Check out ICIMOD’s findings here: http://www.icimod.org/nepalearthquake2015

Amateur Mapping
Immediate – By the power of crowdsourcing, Tomnod, fueled by DigitalGlobe, has engaged the general public all over the world to help identify areas in Nepal with large amounts of destruction to buildings and roads by searching through their collection of satellite images. This information is then relayed to relief groups to identify areas where there may be persons in need.

Immediate – A similar call for amateur mappers has been made by the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, which has its volunteers perform tasks like searching for wells and pharmacies and labeling roads and buildings. Check out their page with prioritized task lists.

 

	Figure 1. DigitalGlobe satellite images of Kathmandu’s historic Dharahara Tower, before the earthquake (left), and after the earthquake had reduced the tower to rubble (right). (DigitalGlobe)

General

Other current immediate aid efforts are summarized in the latest Nepal Earthquake 2015 Situation Report No. 10 (4 May 2015).

These few measures presented above exemplify the range of effort that is being put into providing immediate relief to Nepal as well as fostering its resiliency to natural hazards. While the majority of focus by such organizations is on providing urgent assistance to those in need, Nepal’s progress towards becoming more resilient to earthquakes will surely become an even hotter topic.

An organization that aims to facilitate Nepal’s transition to becoming more resilient is the National Society for Earthquake Technology – Nepal. The vision of the NSET is to establish “Earthquake Safe Communities in Nepal by 2020.” This mission covers the development and improvement of both proactive and reactive measures. The damage and destruction caused by the recent event further reinforces the importance of such a mission.

 

Curated topics from the April 25, 2015, Nepal Earthquake to help inform reconnaissance activities, identify impacted regions, and help document the timeline of earthquake response/recovery.