Big quake in south-central Nepal could kill 22,000 people: Study

Kathmandu, Feb. 14: A three-year risk assessment project, carried out by the government and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), has estimated that should a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hits central Nepal in the south, about 22,000 people would die and 44.7 per cent of the residential buildings would be damaged in the Kathmandu Valley alone.

The projection was made for the next 15 years and was based on the ground shaking behaviour in the Kathmandu Valley during the April 2015 earthquake. 

“No one needs to get panicked as we have presented just a scenario to estimate the human casualty and physical damage in the tremors. It’s not a forecast of any earthquake,” Suman Salike, Senior Divisional Engineer and Information Officer at the Ministry of Urban Development, said at the ‘Final seminar of the Project for Assessment of Earthquake Disaster Risk for the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal’. 

According to the assessment, about 86,860 people would be injured if a 7.8 Richter scale quake hits the nation, and 1,196,080 people will need to be evacuated. 

Other results are 4.7 per cent roads could be damaged due to liquefaction and 26.7 per cent (12 out of 45 RC structures) of the bridges may become non-functional. Water supply may be cut off at 3,496 points (total 1,167 km), 11.9 km (out of 1,192 km) sewage line may stop functioning, of the 190,851 power distribution poles, 9,156 may be damaged, and communication could be interrupted due to damage to 372 BTS towers, concluded the report. 

The government had collaborated with JICA to carry out the risk assessment and formulate a Local Disaster and Climate Resilience Plan (LDCRP). 

The project’s team leader Ryoji Takahashi said that the government together with the stakeholders should take proper and timely actions to reduce the possible huge damages. 

The project has formulated Technical Guidelines for the formulation of the LDCRP, which can be used as a manual by the local governments. 

Salike said that it would help the local governments make inclusive and detailed plan to reduce the risk and set the target for mitigation. 

He also said that based on the risk assessment result, the target level for disaster risk reduction was set in Lalitpur Metropolitan City, Bhaktapur Municipality and Budhanilkantha Municipality as 35 per cent and 40 per cent respectively. 

The main purpose of the risk assessment was to know the level of damage that might occur to the buildings, critical infrastructure and lifelines by the earthquakes and provide basic information to the government, line ministries, departments and local governments in order to formulate strategic plans, policies and laws to reduce and minimise the disaster risks. 

Inventories of buildings (schools and health facilities), roads, bridges, water supply, power distribution, telecommunication (mobile BTS towers) of the valley were collected through primary as well as secondary sources for the purpose of risk assessment, read a news release by the project. 

The project has prepared a Standard Operation Procedure (SOP) as a manual for the municipalities, which has detailed activities to be performed both on-duty and off-duty by the elected municipal officials as well as government employees for three days after the occurrence of an earthquake, while the activities after three days are covered in the LDCRP. 

The three-year project was started in 2015, just a couple of months before the devastating earthquake, and will be completed this year. 

The Ministries of Urban Development, Home Affairs and Federal Affairs and Local Development and Department of Mines and Geology are involved in the activities from the government side. 

Secretary at the Ministry of Urban Development Deependra Nath Sharma said that the government was preparing to establish a centre for disaster preparedness in all the seven provinces. 

Published in The Rising Nepal on 15 February 2018.