Responding to a mega earthquake: Lessons from the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake, Nepal

The magnitude 7.8 April 2015 Nepal Earthquake, widely known as The Gorkha Earthquake, claimed 8,979 lives, with a further 22,309 injured. Estimated economic losses were approximately USD 9.4 billion, ~50% of country’s nominal GDP of FY 2014/15. About one third of the country's population was impacted. Nepal had not witnessed such a large-scale disaster in 90 years.

The National Planning Commission (NPC) prepared a Post Disaster Need Assessment (PDNA) report within three months. This report estimated the financial cost of destruction (outside of the housing sector), highlighting the need for huge financial resources and the creation of institutions for post-quake reconstruction and resilient recovery (NPC 2015). Consequently, the Ministry of Finance organised an International Conference on Nepal’s Reconstruction (ICNR) on 25 June 2015 in which the equivalent of $4.1 billion of financial support was pledged by development partners.

As there wasn’t any government institution in Nepal to take care of post-disaster reconstruction and recovery, a new institution called National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) was established on 25 December 2015, mandated by a law called “Act Related to the Reconstruction of Earthquake Affected Structures, 2015”. It was an organisation with a totally new set up, where inexperienced government employees were surrounded by various Development Partners with their own nudging and buzzing. NRA initially established sub-regional offices but scrapped those offices within a year relying on regular bureaucracy at districts and local level. At the central office, it established Central Level Project Implementation Units for the reconstruction of private housing and local infrastructure, education and health facilities, cultural heritage and government buildings. At the district level, there were District Level Project Implementation Units. Later, various reconstruction works were decentralised when a newly elected local government was formed in 2017 (before that local government was administered by government officials for a couple of years). NRA’s tenure ended on 24th of December 2021. 

One year after the earthquake, on 12 May 2016, the NRA published the Post Disaster Recovery Framework (PDRF), which estimated reconstruction and recovery needs in 21 affected sectors – amounting to $9.38 billion. The private housing sector's requirement, from PDRF’s estimations, was nearly 61% of the total reconstruction and recovery cost, followed by education, cultural heritage, health institutions and government buildings sectors subsequently (NRA 2016). 

I was fielded as the first government employee at NRA during which I witnessed and contributed to all stages of disaster management: search, rescue, relief, establishment of NRA, preparation of guidelines and standards, planning and budgeting, communication, I/NGO mobilisation and more. More recently, I led the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA), a permanent and central disaster management institution. Given the recent devastating earthquake measuring 7.7 Mw in Myanmar and its impact in neighbouring countries, my experience in Nepal and the lessons I outline below can shed light on managing the response to significant natural disasters.

Immediate response: Search, rescue and relief

The search and rescue operations were led by Nepali security forces. Irrespective to the availability of advanced equipment and logistics, rescuers worked tirelessly to rescue the survivors and dead bodies. The great sense of voluntarism was instrumental in supporting the rescue team and during the phase of relief distribution. A huge inflow of relief items from friendly countries, INGOs and international humanitarian assistance agencies was facilitated by the intact international airport for air-lifting and cargo handling, effective communication and quick network recovery, and the mobilisation of the whole state machinery. A high level of preparedness coupled with the division of efforts, skilled human resources, increased synergies and immediate rescue and relief require a high degree of coordination and communication among the involved national and international stakeholders. Nepal was lucky enough to have all those except a high level of preparedness.

Managing humanitarian support

In Nepal, there is cluster mechanism led by relevant sector ministries with a related UN agency as co-lead. Overall coordination was made by the Ministry of Home Affairs and its wings at district level called District Administration Offices. All items, including logistic support from Development partners, I/NGOs, private sector, charity organisations and UN agencies were distributed through one-window.

Temporary settlement and early recovery

Almost one million houses were completely or partially damaged due to the earthquake. Therefore, tarpaulin, tents, corrugated zinc sheets and other materials were distributed for the affected families. After a short period, big temporary shelters were also built but almost none of them were used since almost none of the affected families opted to live in those shelters.

Post Disaster Need Assessment (PDNA) to Post Disaster Recovery Framework (PDRF)

Based on Post Disaster Need Assessment (PDNA) report the NRA prepared a Post Disaster Recovery Framework (PDRF) that estimated around USD $8.4 billion was necessary for reconstruction and a resilient recovery. PDRF was a policy guideline that clearly outlined organisational structure, financing and financial management strategies, a policy regime for each sector, and the modus operandi of implementation and monitoring systems (NRA 2016). “Well-planned, resilient settlement and a prosperous society” was its recovery vision.

Financing

Upon the call from the Ministry of Finance, the international community pledged $4.1 billion for the recovery process. Out of that, 90% was committed and only 45% was realised. Although all the pledged amount was not realised (the loan commitments were the main part unrealised), this acted as the main source of financing. The Ministry of Finance also allocated internal revenues to finance the recovery. 

In addition, 241 I/NGOs and Community-Based Organizations supported 412 reconstruction projects and provided housing support. This led to the reconstruction of 18,914 houses, 1,308 schools, 80 health institutions, 48 income generating programmes, 2,200 model houses, 15 heritage sites, 3 integrated settlements, 55 small water supply systems, 23 small irrigation programmes, 7 days’ mason training for 49,457 and, 50 days’ mason training for 22,364. Households who didn’t have safe land entitled to their family members to build a new house were provided with an additional amount to purchase land. 12,788 landless households got land and a grant to build their houses (11,494 (~90%) in situ, and 1294 (~10%) bought land). Socio-technical and financial support has enabled rural households, including the vulnerable, to construct houses in an owner-driven manner (UNDP 2021). 

Progress on urban housing reconstruction was not so encouraging. This was due to cumbersome urban planning, high rebuilding costs and complicated land entitlements. Shrestha, Parajuli and Malani (2021) suggest that integrated reconstruction activities with a long-term urban renewal strategy are needed to avoid sluggish urban housing reconstruction and should be financed through the proceeds from the sales of additional created building space. 

The Government of Nepal bore a huge cost of reconstruction and recovery since there were neither housing insurance systems nor any disaster mitigation fund, such as a ‘catastrophe bond’. Remittances were the only effective coping strategy that helped households recover their livelihoods in the post-quake situation in Nepal (Raut 2020). Financial literacy and access to finance, as suggested by Poudel et al (2020), is crucial in saving vulnerable victims from informal lenders, private lenders and high interest charging cooperatives. Formal sector loans should be accessible to reduce the financial burden on households (Khanal et al. 2020).

Rapid building damage assessment

To identify the damage grade of affected houses and provide housing grants, the NRA conducted detailed damage assessments of all affected houses. Once the damage grade and the beneficiaries for housing grants were determined, NRA developed 14 prototype designs so that people can choose any design and immediately start reconstruction. Hundreds of thousand houses were built but we learnt that these prototypes almost eliminated the cultural legacy and traditional authenticity of houses, costing Nepal in the long-term due to reduced tourist attractions and climate friendliness. As argued by Rokka and Singh (2020), involvement of locals in planning and designing phases helped to share ideas to build rural-friendly model houses which could reflect their local cultures and traditions. 

To explore the efficiency of various machine-learning techniques in rapid earthquake-induced building assessment, research was conducted later by using the crowd-sourced building damage data. The evidence shows that the 2015 Nepal earthquake building-damage portfolio and the Random Forest Regression (RFR) model can be used for both site-specific and global rapid seismic risk assessment in Nepal. Such models can be helpful to assist stakeholders and decision makers in rapid seismic risk assessment in order to formulate and implement plans and policies in earthquake disaster risk reduction (Ghimire, Gueguen and Schorlemmer 2021, p. 129).

Individual housing reconstruction

Nepal provided NRs. 3 lakh (equivalent to USD 3000) grant assistance in three tranches, but a study conducted in two highly affected districts (Sindhupalchok and Gorkha) revealed that average construction costs were more than double the government’s housing grant. This is likely why most of the reconstructed houses were one story, a shift from pre-earthquake practices when traditional houses in rural areas were generally multi-storied (Varum et al. 2018, Panthi, Bajracharya, Khanal and Subedi, 2021, p. 59). Making formal sector loans accessible to rural populations recovering after disasters, to reduce financial burdens and enhance the capacity of marginalised households, should be taken into account (ibid, p. 77). Additionally, timely and affordable housing recovery requires diversified strategies to reduce construction costs and ways to develop housing financial services and access to credit on reasonable terms to increase the ability of households to meet those costs (Stephenson 2020). Urban recovery in Nepal has been more problematic than rural recovery and requires specif­ic technical and financial assistance, particularly in historic towns.

Restoration of cultural heritage

Nepal had a mixed experience in reconstructing and restoring cultural heritages. Where the user’s committee (representatives of the community who have been preserving and managing heritage over centuries) was strong enough to shoulder the responsibility of the reconstruction of such heritage, its authenticity and originality was well restored. Participatory heritage-making enhanced the sense of belongingness, better community bonding, bringing collective efforts and peoples’ attachment to their heritage on top of transparency and quality (Joshi, Tamrakar and Magaiya 2020). In contrast, the vulnerability of heritage structures was increased by the loss of traditional construction knowledge where such user’s committees were absent (Rawal et al. 2020). To restore its originality and retain the historical authenticity of such monuments, scattered archaeological evidence was integrated. 

Shrestha (2021) argue that User’s Committee led reconstruction was preferred by communities as it ensured a deep sense of ownership of their historical and cultural identities, enhanced transparency and resulted in better-quality reconstruction. In this aspect, UNESCO guidelines were found to be narrow in defining heritage and capturing people’s historical values and aspects of collective memories associated with heritage and typical cultural identities (Suji et al 2020). Additionally, Shrestha, Twayana and Rajbanshi (2020) argue that some heritage sites have outstanding universal value that can be preserved only by transmission of ancestral knowledge and technology. 

Stakeholder’s coordination

An INGO mobilisation guideline was issued to bring all I/NGOs and the private sector to shoulder the recovery initiative in housing, WASH, nutrition, livelihood, GESI and other sectors. All development partners and international financial institution followed the country system. In-situ and owner driven approaches were adopted to reconstruct individual houses. 

Grievance handling

NRA conducted a “Reconstruction Related Grievance Handling Procedure, 2015”. As a result: 

634,973 complaints regarding the housing grant eligibility were filed, of which 27.4% (174,146) were then enlisted in the beneficiary list after being re-surveyed, and multiple rounds of reviews and verifications. All complaints received were reviewed; 32,918 people queried and sought clarification as well as counselling support through toll free service of NRA.

Lessons from Nepal’s experience

Reconstruction of private housing may take a long time. In earthquake affected zones, 1,037,291 households were surveyed and 811,754 households (HHs) were identified as housing grant beneficiaries. All identified beneficiaries signed participation agreements to reconstruct their houses. Of these, 99.86% claimed and received the first tranche, 86.78% received the second and only 78% got the third tranche (until the last date of NRA’s tenure). Later, the remaining task was handed over to Ministry of Urban Development. While monitoring the reconstruction process, I found that identifying safer places to rebuild houses, a reluctance to move to integrated settlement, lengthy bureaucratic processes and migration after receiving the first tranche, were a few reasons for the drop off. 

Prototype designs may be misleading. Having some kind of seismic resilient housing is important, but housing designs should be adequate for people’s domestic, familial and cultural needs (Shneiderman et al. 2021, p. 108). 

Reconstruction of cultural heritage sites may be sluggish. Sustainable reconstruction of heritage sites is in limbo since only 42% of the reconstruction of historical monuments have been completed so far. The act should be amended to mobilise the private sector (Baskota and Shrestha 2020) 

Relocating to integrated settlements in rural areas may be effective if they are owner-driven. Consideration of means of livelihood is a very crucial aspect while planning for integrated settlement. As argued by Sharma and Basnet (2020), owner-driven relocation, rehabilitation and reconstruction programmes for displaced and landless people enhance their access to better services, providing safety and improving welfare.

Various aspects should be considered for livelihood interventions. Helping communities after disasters demands adequate capacity building support, institutional linkage, user-friendly and appropriate technology, mandating a definite transition phase, a one window coordination mechanism, and robust monitoring and reporting mechanisms (Singh, Sah and Dhungel, 2021).

Special treatment is needed for vulnerable groups. Vulnerability and resilience have multiple linkages through time, place, the nature of disasters, climate conditions, access to power, socio-economic and cultural practices. Therefore, a blanket approach may not be effective in identifying vulnerable households (Khattri 2021). When targeting a vulnerable group, we shouldn’t forget that particular group is more vulnerable. Households with exposures to natural hazards and reliance on herding, non-irrigated farming, and forest product harvest have experienced greater difficulties in resilient recovery in Nepal (Spoon et al. 2020).

What did not work?

Geo-hazard survey and the identification of alternative places for resettlement: A lack of consideration of livelihood opportunities in new re-settlement areas and loopholes in the geo-hazard assessment by NRA undermined local voices and no active participation of local stakeholders was ensured. No informed decision about suitable places for affordable, suitable and safe land for permanent resettlement was made (Rieger 2021). Democratising policy action is needed. 

Very formal channel of communication. Usage of multiple media tools for different communities is crucial for effective communication to increase understanding and outreach (Sharma et al. 2020). Successful reconstruction is largely dependent on the beneficiaries’ ability to gather, process and utilise several forms of information. 

Lost culture and irreparable damage to heritage sites. A loss of traditional knowledge, overwhelmed by prototype housing designs and the delayed reconstruction of cultural heritages, were the weak aspects of Nepal’s reconstruction process. Prototype designs inherited modern and costly reconstruction materials. Local construction materials for the reconstruction of rural houses should have been prioritised (Panthi et al. 2021). 

Despite the weaknesses identified above, integrated settlement development, owner-driven individual housing reconstruction, the one-window policy for resource mobilisation, following the country system (in planning, budgeting and monitoring of reconstruction projects), the principle of ‘build-back-better’, and the penetration of seismic-resistance infrastructure design were very important learnings from the Nepal’s experience.

References

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