The Himalayan Tragedy

A 7.9 magnitude earthquake rocked the Himalayan nation in April. Nepal lies on a geological fault line. This was caused by the movement of the Indian Plate towards the Eurasian plate. The disaster took a tall on nearly 7000 lives and about 3 million locals have been displaced.

The Nepal earthquake was devastating due to following factors:

• The source of the quake was shallow and the fault plane extended right up to densely populated Kathmandu. 
• Kathmandu is on a primitive lake basin that amplifies seismic wave energy. 
• The issues that have held up the successful completion of the Constitution-writing process that begun in 2008 are closely related to the present inability of the Nepal government to respond effectively to the natural disaster. If Nepal had been a federal republic with greater decentralisation of power and had increased community participation, would there not have been better roads and more responsive administrative systems?

Rescue and Relief Operations:

Rescuers from 22 countries are involved as per the UN. Operation Maitri is the symbol of our warm relations and not political opportunism.

• The power grid corporation of India helped in restoring the electricity grid.
• India has sent doctors, medical aid and other relief supplies in 13 military aircraft. 
• 13 NDRF teams of about 500 people were involved in rescue operations.

#GoHomeIndianMedia was recently trending on twitter with the people of Nepal accusing the Indian media of insensitive reporting. An apology by the media houses collectively would have sufficed to calm sentiments down.

A wake-up call for India:

The capital of the country, Delhi lies in Seismic Zone 4. For Delhi, most of the settlements are based on Yamuna's flood plains and hence the fear of being near the fault line is looming large and thus even  a modest earthquake can bring the capital to its knees.

P.K.Mishra taskforce concluded in its report that NDMA is like a think tank and that there is lack of functional integration between NDMA and MHA. The NDMA and ASI have not collaborated on the front to save the Heritage Buildings as of now.

As per a report published in Hindu, over 4500 large dams lack emergency action plan.

Taking a leaf out of Japan's book

• Japan has stringent building laws for 'Earthquakes don't kill people, collapsed buildings do.'
• Each high rise has marked exit routes and is fitted with escape equipments. 
• Use of Earthquake dampers and other technologies in buildings.
• Regular evacuation drills to sensitize people and especially the young ones.

Earthquakes are the most difficult to predict. India’s close proximity to an active plate boundary makes better building practices,quake- resistant buildings, sensitising the public, retrofitting, complaince with seismic codes and seismological research necessary.