Virtual Earthquake Reconnaissance Team (VERT) Summary by Deepak Pant.
Nepal national building code (NBC) was first drafted in 1994 following the lessons learned from the 1988 M6.8 earthquake which killed more than 700 people in Nepal.
The NBC was approved by the government in 2003 and is a legally binding document in all 130 municipalities. Note however, that no such regulation is applied to towns and villages, which fall under village development committees (VDCs). Nonetheless, because of the lack of resources, monitoring of implementation of the code has been a big challenge since it was first legally enforced in 2005. Some municipalities have done better in adopting and implementing than others. Noteworthy is that some VDCs around Kathmandu valley have voluntarily adopted the code.
In a nutshell, NBC allows the use of any international codes and standards that meet minimum requirements of the NBC. In practice, however, for reinforced concrete structures, the NBC 201 and NBC 205 that stipulate mandatory rules of thumb are widely used. Click here to download various NBCs.
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.
Information on design codes and construction practices from the April 25, 2015, Nepal earthquake.
