Tag Archives: construction

Earthquake Hits Nepal

By Kim Smiley

As anyone paying any attention to the news knows, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake hit Nepal on April 25, 2015.   The same forces that created the Himalayan Mountains are still at work in the region as the Indo-Australian Plate slowly slides under the Eurasian Plate and experts have long warned about the potential for an earthquake in this location.

At least 4,600 people were killed as a result of the earthquake and the United Nations has stated that 8 million people have been affected.  Many people impacted by the disaster lack adequate water and food and are living in temporary shelters without sanitation facilities.  Beyond the sheer scope of the natural disaster, providing emergency assistance has also been difficult because some of the affected villages are in remote locations that are challenging to access and many roads were damaged by the earthquake.  The long-term economic impacts are also predicted to be large because of the significant damage to infrastructure and the fact that local economies relay heavily on tourism.

A Cause Map, a visual root cause analysis, can be built to help understand this disaster better. A Cause Map lays out the cause-and-effect relationships in an intuitive format by asking “why” questions.  In this tragic example, asking why so many fatalities occurred shows that the majority of deaths were caused by collapsing buildings.  Many buildings in the impacted area were unreinforced masonry structures that couldn’t withstand the force of the earthquake.  These buildings are cheaper and quicker to build than more modern construction that would meet building codes designed to survive an earthquake.

Civil unrest in the region has resulted in rapid urbanization and a large demand for housing as people moved into cities. Rapid and relatively unregulated urbanization in a country with one of the lowest per capita incomes in the world proved to be a deadly combination in a region prone to earthquakes. Historically a major earthquake has struck this region about every 75 years and this one had long been predicted.  Says Susan Hough, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, “It was clearly a disaster in the making that was getting worse faster than anyone was able to make it better. You’re up against a Himalayan-scale problem with Third World resources.”

Every disaster and the emergency response to it should be studied to see if there are any lessons learned that can be used to save lives and minimize damage in the future. There is clearly no “solution” that can prevent an earthquake, but even when dealing with a natural disaster there are ways the impact of a disaster could be mitigated.  The possible solutions may not be cheap or easy, but it is important to remember that it is possible. You can’t stop the earthquake, but you can work to build stronger buildings.