Lessons from Nepal Earthquake - How communities of Himalayan States of India have to innovatively integrate their collective efforts to prepare locally to minimize losses?

1.
Lessons from Nepal Earthquake ­ How communities of Himalayan States
of India have to innovatively integrate their collective efforts to prepare
locally to minimize losses?
By
Dr. Colonel N M Verma, Director General Saritsa Foundation
Natural disasters like the powerful earthquake that hit Nepal on 25 April highlight the
region's vulnerability, as well as lack of capacity in dealing with complex emergencies. About
8000 thousand of people in Nepal have died and injured and a large number has lost their
means of livelihood, sliding the country further back into poverty. There will continue to be a
rise in both loss of life and economic loss from this tragedy in days, weeks and months. That’s
the reality.
How Nepal has added to its vulnerability to an Earthquake continuously?
The risk to Nepal from such an earthquake was well researched and publicized time to time
since many years. However, scientists could not have predicted or forecasted the time and
dates of an earthquakes beyond saying that where they have happened in the past, they will
again will happen in future too. Nepal had faced such an earthquake in 1934. It is also noted
that in the past, four earthquakes between 1857 and 1950 with the magnitude of 8 and more
have occurred on Indo China border. These included an earthquakes with Richter scale of 8 on
November 18, 1951 and 1946, says Harsh Gupta, President Geological Society of India.
In spite of all available information and warning, the most glaring difficulty by political
leadership and community leaders have been that they, out side agencies and other national

2. and international organizations have been their failings to get people's partnership and
concentration and will to invest in reducing risk. In a country like Nepal, it always looks
remote, when they have every day pressing concerns of poverty, environmental degradation
amounting to pollution, air and water quality and traffic, which are common to most Asian
cities in urban and rural life.
Likewise, it is also evident that, the Nepal Risk Reduction Consortium, a coalition of partners
working in the field of disaster risk reduction (DRR), has been only assisting the government
to roll out an inter­connected set of key measures, and has helped pass legislation addressing
vulnerabilities to natural hazards. They remained tied up to government centric approach to
Disaster Risk Reduction with little effort to raise awareness of local people by sensitizing them
to prepare. It is easiest path taken by most UN agencies to keep local governments and
politicians happy with some projects and remain happy and peaceful. Planning for resilience
centers on mainstreaming people in the process of DRR with equal sensitivity which has been
missed.
Risk­ and blind development and disasters are interwoven­ Nepal is very much the result of
human action and development choices. Poor infrastructure, a lack of compliance with
building codes, and high levels of poverty that have elevated vulnerabilities mean that the
likelihood of an earthquake having devastating impact is significantly higher than in a similar
context with stronger infrastructure and better socio­economic conditions. It is these factors
that elevated risk levels in Nepal says Jo Scheuer is Chief of Profession, Director ­ UNDP.
The government of Nepal has been aware of this challenge and has been spearheading efforts
to both strengthen existing infrastructure and tighten legislation around new developments.
This has had many positive results, including retrofitting of critical facilities such as hospitals
and schools, the construction of new private housing in accordance with building codes,
training of masons in earthquake­proof building techniques for non­engineered buildings, and
training for airport staff in Kathmandu to better prepare for emergency relief, which was
organized by the United Nations Development Programme and shipping giant Deutsche Post
DHL Group. It was a very little effort in comparison to the needs of the people. Such initiatives
had little impact because a large group of people were left out. The short memory of 1934
earthquake slowly faded away and people made no serious effort and opportunity to build
capacity or change their mindset of indifference to preparedness to deal with an earthquake
of this magnitude.
The vulnerability was further increased due to decades of substandard building practices and
challenges in building code compliance were hard to overcome and could not be undone or
fixed overnight. The thousands of buildings that already existed in Kathmandu and
neighboring areas before the government tightened legislation have been too costly to retrofit
and hence, constituted much of Nepal's disaster risk level. Also, in recent years, the heavy
influx of rural population to cities like Kathmandu also put enormous pressure on the housing
sector, and resulted in a construction boom that more often than not cut corners in building
standards to save time and money. These issues which required sustained commitment, as
well as political will and efforts to raise awareness were not taken care. Tying disaster risk
reduction to development planning and building better infrastructure has been a challenge
for Nepal like any developing country.

3. What this disaster has shown once again is the need for an urgent shift to ensure that
development is risk­informed and people are to be made equally accountable to prepare. “If
you help to build local and national capacity to respond, the big dream is that in the long run,
there won’t be a need for international support say Juliant Hunt and Joy Preira. Every dollar
spent on preparedness saves eight dollars in response – the evidence is so clear, yet missed in
many ways. There’s so much more attention is vital at local levels that are needed to
responding to a disasters and it had to be learnt beforehand.”
How this earthquake serves as a wake­up call on the importance of
investing in preparation by the governments, central government of
India and the people of 12 Himalayan states jointly? How people have to
push this investment on their priority list?
On analyzing India's vulnerability to occurrence of such an earthquake in future, it is
important to share that, 12 Himalayan states are highly prone to earthquake hazards with
intensity of Nepal Earthquake of 25 April or more. For ease of an easy identification, these
states are Jammu and Kashmir, with 41.65 percent area, Himachal Pradesh with 10.43,
Uttrakhand with 10.02 percent area, Sikkim with 1.3 percent are West Bengal Hills 0.59
percent area, Meghalaya with 4.20 percent area, Assam Hills with 2.87 percent area, Tripura
with 1.97 percent area, Mizoram with 3.95 percent area, Manipur 4.18 percent area,
Nagaland 3.11 percent area and Arunachal Pradesh with 15.59 percent area which is
geographically defined as vulnerable . Also, it is important to highlight that states of Punjab,
Haryana, Delhi, Rajashthan and Gujarat may face severe impacts of such an earthquake in
Himalayan region.
Assessment made by the Indian government time to time has revealed that entire Himalayan
region is vulnerable to high intensity earthquakes exceeding 8.0 on the Richter scale which
could adversely affect millions of people more than it has affected people of Nepal. A paper
based on scientific assessments, by National Institute of Disaster Management has warned
that ‘very severed’ earthquakes were likely to occur anytime in the Himalayan region. Whole
of Northeast India and Northern states of Bihar, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, J&K,
Gujarat and Andaman & Nicobar Islands are at high risk.
The National Disaster Management Authority of India too had in 2013 said that over 8 lakh
people may die if an earthquake measuring 8 on the Richter scale occurs in the seismically­
active Himalayan states from Jammu and Kashmir to Arunachal Pradesh.
The most important dimension of all these official assessments is how local and national
governments have to strengthen mechanisms to minimize losses from such catastrophes in
future. Have the people of these states been able to influence the processes for focusing on risk
reduction which would be in everyone’s interests. Is there an enthusiasm by the people as well
as local governments to integrate and scale up their well meaning efforts to work collectively
to face such dangerous situations. The answer to such meaningful queries will not be found
satisfactory. The governments of these states may argue and supported by Government of
India that most concerns are taken care which are unfortunately illusionary with
bureaucratic approach with many inadequacies putting hundreds of thousands of Indians in
state of very high risk. What the governments have so far concentrated is legislation and
strengthening infrastructure and forces for rescue, which is not proactive DRR but reactive

4. where they have resources to react with needed force and resources for rescue. It is needed,
yet, it has to be balanced with preparedness of people which would help in safeguarding the
future of hundreds of thousands of Indians and their developmental gains. It is much beyond
recovering human bodies from fallen buildings.
There’s so much more attention is needed for developing skills of people for responding to
such a disaster with ethical accountability at all levels of governance and the people. From
visible and identified evidence it appears that governments, UN agencies outside agencies as
well as donors, need to introspect their present approach to overcome these inadequacies to
make sure that they have to prioritize to support both communities and governments with
equal sensitivity before the next disaster strikes so there’s not just an influx of rescue and
relief forces when there is a disaster; but recognized importance lies when people of theses
states are empowered by building their capacity with needed awareness, education, training
and maximum use of local resources for protection, responding for rescue. It needs allocation
of financial resources with equal sensitivity for chosen capacity building plans at local level.
It is painful to share an incident that when Nepal shook, 293 Strong­ motion
accelerographs positioned in Himalayan states slept through and remained dud reports
Roheeni Singh of DNA on 10 May Mumbai issue of DNA. It amounts to a shocking state of
apathy and criminal negligence by those who are accountable to take care of such an
important equipment which can facilitate early waring to let people prepare to protect. This
equipment was put with an expenditure of crores of rupees. It is in state of neglect and it does
not work for the purpose for which it has been put at these locations. This is one of the
examples of government dominant bias in delivering on DRR agenda. This has to be taken
care by collective responsibility.
How it can happen depends when political and bureaucrats reconcile to the idea that their
ownership for Disaster Risk Reduction has to be handed over to the people of these states and
they work in supporting role to support initiatives and guide them appropriately. This process
has been advocated and practiced by Saritsa Foundation for past 15 years. It is People
Centered, People Led and People Owned process of DRR. UNISDR has favorably accepted that
future of DRR hinges on making it stronger and people centered as Ms Magreta W head of
UNISDR spoke at her press briefing at Sendai, Japan on conclusion of World Conference on
Disaster Risk Reduction on 18 March 2015. This is well recognized and replicable good
practice which is one of the answers directly strengthening the DRR.
It is not to be considered a matter of "if" but "when" the next major earthquake will happen ­­
and we need to be ready. Now is the time to reflect on lessons learned and to come together in
support of better risk­informed people and its poverty eradication and development
connectivity Like the Indonesian island of Aceh in 2004, India can use this earthquake as a
rallying point to conclude the process where people become equal partners come together
and unite behind a common goal: by understanding their role, responsibility and
accountability to be safer and more resilient in a better way for their future.
The government of India and state governments have to open up their mind to provide
opportunity to people to empower them by providing access to needed information,
education, training to build their capacity to respond. Creation of reactive forces like NDRF
and SDRF as well as technological advanced mechanisms is vital part of Rescue operations in
any country, yet it remains exclusively an act of reactive DRR and leaving people with an idea

5. that they have little role to protect in disasters and they wait for government agencies to help
them to respond. An enslaved mindset which has to be taken care with serious commitment of
local and national governments with a paradigm shift in their ways to deal with disasters.
Time has come where governments rationalize their spending with equal allocation of
resources to prepare people at local level. Government institutes are there to support this
education, yet, they remain trapped in educating and training government officials who get
little opportunity to contribute for this goal in their states.
Every community is different in terms of geography, the make­up of its population, the age of
its infrastructure, the potential hazards it must plan for, its financial resources and much
more, so is the case with 12 Himalayan states with varying challenges of vulnerability. The
policy and planning guidance have to be a customizable tool that each community of these
states can use it as usable craft to be resilient with a strategy which is aligned with its unique
combination of characteristics, circumstances and priorities.
Preparing for a disaster takes community­wide input, and I’m pleased share that Saritsa
Foundation in India has substantial contribution for developing resilience amongst people for
past 15 years.
Above all else, investments have to be made now to address the vulnerabilities that lead to the
disaster in the first place, and to ensure that future earthquakes do not lead to such
devastation in Himalayan states. This includes governance measures ­­ such as tightening
regulations and ensuring compliance to existing building codes ­­ as well as investing in better
risk­informed development practices where is much beyond forming rules and regulations.
Grasping this challenge needs boldness of minds much beyond intentions to make India safer
and resilient.
Saritsa Foundation works for its mission in 19 states to impart life saving education to build
capacity of people to protect in disasters. Saritsa Foundation has been emphasizing the
importance of making all life line concerns­ such as responding at individual, family and
community responses with developed skills, making schools, hospitals, fire services, police
stations and Army cantonment buildings earthquake resistant. Saritsa sensitizes these issues
in its Life Saving Education by conducting educational training workshops for past 15 years
where 2,60,000 people including 10,600 persons with disability to develop resilience.
However, situation in states may be much of a surprise. Whenever any state government
officials are approached to work jointly to prepare people at local level by Saritsa Foundation,
their set replies are we have reached at each local level in districts and we have prepared
every one as envisaged. Reality check on ground has an entirely different story telling that no
one has reached to them. All this smells of criminal negligence and preparedness on paper.
The team of Saritsa Foundation conducted 3 workshops for school children in Chamba district
of Himachal on 27, 28 and 29 April 2015 This was an initiative to prepare most vulnerable
with education and training. It is an area which is as vulnerable to earthquakes as Nepal with
famous Kangra earthquake where the 200, 000 people were killed. Saritsa Foundation also
conducted a workshop for wives and children of wives of Army Officers, Junior Commissioned
and Jawans and their children on 30 April at a cantonment which is in close vicinity of
earthquake prone area of Himachal and Jammu and Kashmir.

6. Children and Teachers of Armya Samaj
Public School, Chamba, Himachal after
workshop with the team of Saritsa
Foundation ­ 27 April 2015
Children and Teachers of Primary
School, Bakrota/Chamba after
workshop with the team of Saritsa
Foundation ­ 28 April 2015
The way forward for these 12 Himalayan states and key lessons are to be prepared, prepared
and prepared. It can happen by making their people concentrate and invest in reducing
earthquake risks with developed awareness, education and training and much needed by
governments ad outside agencies. It has to be a joint approach and cooperation by the people
and local governments. Donors nationally and internationally as well as corporate leaders
must remember that it is their support to prepare communities which is more important to
make it a reality. It is known fact that $ 1 of expenses invested on capacity building of people
gets multiplied by $ 8 for the cause of rescue, relief and re­construction.
Workshop at a Primary School in rural
Chamba ­ Dalhousie on 29 April 2015.
Teachers practiced to protect ­ a Mock
Drill.
The Teachers and School Children with
the team of Saritsa Foundation.

7.
Humble Appeal
We all are convince that people have to be prepared. I solicit your support for donating to the
cause of preparing women, girls, school children, youth, disabled, older people and common
citizens by imparting life saving education with them at their Door Steps in these Himalayan
sates.
Please donate:­
Foreign donors are requested to donate ­
Bank Details:­
Bank Name – Corporation Bank
Branch – Worli Branch, Mumbai
Account Holder Name – Saritsa Charity Trust
Account Number – 017400101020490
IFSC Code – CORP0000174
Indian donors are requested to donate ­
Bank Name – Corporation Bank
Branch – Worli Branch, Mumbai
Account Holder Name – Saritsa Charity Trust
Account Number – 017400101011299
IFSC Code – CORP0000174
LOOK FORWARD FOR YOUR SUPPORT.
THANK YOU !!
Wives of Army Officers, Junior Commissioned Officers and Jawans were
prepared by conducting a workshop at a cantonment closer to
earthquake prone states of Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal on 30
April 2015.