A Year After the Disaster

byAalokSK

154 followers

8 years ago

A year has passed after the devastating earthquake measuring 8.1Ms on 25th April, 2015 which killed more than 9000 people on my nation.

As a survivor of earthquake myself, I can tell that the tragedy and fear it brought to us is frightening till today. A month long of continuous aftershocks forcing us to live a many nights on open field was scary feeling. But that doesn't even count as a problem if we look from the bigger perspective. About 9,000 people dead, another 21,000 people injured, 800,000 structures being destroyed with 500,000 families made homeless and an estimated figure of $811 billion rupees ($8 billion) sought by Nepali government authorities for reconstruction programs over next 5 years. This is a huge data for a country which is still facing the problem of political instability which always hinders the good momentum towards proper development of nation.

Following the shaking of first major shock wave of the earthquake on 25th April, numerous landslides and avalanches occurred on the hills and mountains of the country which kept piling up the dead bodies and filling fears on the living one. Death of more than dozen climbers on deadly avalanche on worlds highest peak Mt.Everest was one of the highlights. There were some high magnitude earthquakes even after the major one, including the one with magnitude of 7.4Ms on 12 May 2015. Sandwiching many buildings on the capital city Kathmandu to wiping out the entire village with earthquakes as well as the large landslides triggered by it became few of many horrendous thing for Nepali people to cope with.

Since the first earthquake hit Barpak of Gorkha district, many national and international aid agencies flew into the epicenter area and were first focused and rescue followed by their rehabilitation. According to one of the weekly magazine of Nepal, ‘Himal khabar’ the estimated amount of money spent as aid by different agencies, INGOs and NGOs to be $1 billion. Afterward bureaucracy causing the problem to reach up to the victim, many donors started to give up agitated by trying to tackle with it. The lengthy governmental process is still holding couple of million aid on UNESCO office even after one year since devastating earthquake.

Government has provided $250 for families left homeless and $400 for death of each member of the family. This has been just about enough for temporary settlement for may families but no money can take away the pain caused by death of family member.

As a step to create the opportunity for constructing permanent settlement houses , Government of Nepal(GON) has published 8 model houses as earthquake resilient low cost housing with aid of Rs. 2,00,000 ($2000) for the family whose house was completely collapsed and must build one among the approved models. But the model has got criticism very national and international experts and for lacking earthquake resilient feature that can be managed within the same cost.

The daily life of people were miserably disturbed during the initial month with daily aftershocks whose rate declined slowly over time. The month of May being the month of starting of new class on schools and colleges were postponed by few time. Nation remained on the state of national holiday for few weeks. Closed shops and market made lack of resources major problem for the livings on the week to follow. Although everything has returned on regular routine for schools, colleges and business sector, the fear of the next jolt of earthquake can be experienced especially due to rise of earthquake activity around the world on the past year.

Tourism became one of the major sector affected by the earthquake which directly is affecting nation. Although it took only two months to re-open tourism, the number of arrivals after the scary earthquake dropped by about 35%, according to Department of Tourism of Nepal. Many initiative has been started to let the world know that "Nepal is safe now", but it looks like it will now take many years to match the record of 800,000 tourists visiting this small nation on the year before earthquake.

So,

A year has passed since the tragic day. Few wounds are healed, few will be taken to the grave. We remember all brothers and sister we lost during dark phase of the history. But they don't want us to live in fear. We must move on. We ARE moving on.We must focus on development. We should focus on building houses strong enough to resist the jolts of the earth. The tragedy has happened and now instead of being in sadness and immobilized by the extent of our loss, we must choose to rise from the pain and give all we have to mend it.

I hope you all the good day,
Aalok Sharma Kafle
Nepal.