Efforts of Urban Risk Management
Nepal is vulnerable to multiple hazards and the country is ranked eleventh in terms of earthquake risk. After the earthquakes in both Chile and Haiti, the issue of earthquake risk has come to the forefront of the agenda of both the government of Nepal and the international aid community in Nepal. The vulnerability is higher in Kathmandu as it is a major city situated in a highly active seismic zone, has very high population density, inadequate/unsafe infrastructure and limited disaster management system. In addition, the city lies on a pre-historic lake- bed and the soft sediments are expected to amplify the damage from a major earthquake.
Lives of thousands of residents of Kathmandu are at risks as the level of preparedness for earthquake among the government and people in Kathmandu is low. Some initiatives like the establishment of the National Emergency Operating Centre (EOC) and capacity building of security forces have been initiated by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA). However, very limited attention is given toward building the capacity of local people. Merely identifying open space and demarcating them as IDP camp sites is not sufficient preparation for a response. As water is the primary need in the immediate aftermath of disaster the sites have to be equipped with robust WASH facilities.
The contingency plan of the WASH cluster in Nepal, anticipate that 95% of the water pipes and 50% of the pumps will cease operating, greatly diminishing the water supply of Kathmandu for months. The study conducted by International Organization for Migration (IOM)/ MoHA has identified 83 Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camp sites in Kathmandu Valley that could help up to a total of 710,000 IDPs in very crowded conditions.
While government and aid agencies are preparing plans and interventions to reduce this vulnerability and increase the response capacity for this dramatic scenario, less attention is paid to urbanized areas in the Terai region of Nepal that are equally at risk. Particularly the far Western and Western regions of the country are close to active fault lines. That fact that this region hasn’t experienced significant seismic activity for the past years is defined as a ‘Seismic gap’ which, according to the experts, makes it more likely that a significant earthquake will affect this area in the near future.
LUMANTI in partnership with UK Aid, OXFAM and ENPHO has produced a video documentary on "Efforts of Urban Risk Management". The documentary is focused on Urban WASH Preparedness and Community Based Disaster Risk Reduction and refers to the compilation of practices present in urban communities for the risk reduction.