ResilienceNepal should use updated, upgraded building codes in post-disaster construction: Experts

The death toll from the Nepal earthquake will reach 10,000 or more, as emergency responders continue to uncover death bodies from the ruins. Hundreds of thousands of homes have collapsed, six of Kathmandu Valley’s seven UNESCOWorld Heritage sites and more than fifty-seven other temples and palaces have been reduced to rubble or have suffered deep cracks.

Residents are now moving to rebuild homes. In the collapsed village of Sankhu, twelve miles east of Kathmandu, villagers pick up bricks, stone blocks, and timber to reuse for the eventual rebuilding. “We have to rebuild. As soon as possible,” said local resident Gunkeshari Dangol.

“It is our pride. It is our duty,” added Bhesh Narayan Dahal, director general of Nepal’s Department of Archaeology. He predicts that with international aid, Nepal’s medieval and more recent monuments can be rebuilt in five to seven years.

ThePhiladelphia Inquirer reports that urban planners and disaster experts who have been arriving in Kathmandu to inventory, assess, and make recommendations have been urging the Nepalese authorities to “Build it back better.” There are plenty of examples of post-disaster construction built significantly safer, using low-cost traditional materials and methods.

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See also:

Nepal should use updated, upgraded building codes in post-disaster construction: Experts, 7 May 2015

Corruption, lax building codes exacerbate natural disasters in poor countries, 6 May 2015

Nepal would have benefitted from a seismic early-warning system: Experts, 29 April 2015

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After the 2005 earthquake in the Pakistani part of Kashmir that killed 80,000 people, the local building code was revised to include traditional methods of timber-laced construction. More than 150,000 houses using traditional timber have since been built in that area, said Randolph Langenbach, a California-based international expert on earthquake-resistant construction.

Roughly 80 percent of urban Kathmandu consists of modern structures, built over the last few decades, made of reinforced concrete or masonry with concrete. Most of those buildings survived with minor cracks, according to the National Society for Earthquake Technology (NSET). The other 20 percent, made up of mud-based structures with stone or brick, was reduced to rubble. In nearby rural villages, where earthquake destruction neared 100 percent, almost all the houses are built with unfired brick and clay mortar.

NSET estimates that residents can build a safer house for only 5 percent to 10 percent in additional construction cost. Even a minimum of strategically placed timbers embedded into walls can provide flexibility to a swaying building and help hold it together. Convincing residents of a poor country to take on those extra costs may be a hard sell. Since Nepal completed its building code in 1994, NSET has provided technical assistance to only twenty-five of the country’s 199 municipalities.

“Adopting the building code was very difficult and controversial,” acknowledged Surya Acharya, a civil engineer and one of NSET’s five directors.

On the path to rebuilding, residents are criticizing the government’s slow rescue and relief efforts, while expressing skepticism about government advice on how to rebuild. Many of them have never heard of methods to create more resilient houses. The United Nations Development Program office in Nepal has posted on YouTube, an online tutorial on simple, resilient building methods for both urban and rural structures. It is now left to local leaders to encourage and enforce safe building codes.

“If government will help, we’ll listen,” said Jit Badhur Tamang, twenty-eight, who used to live in one of the flattened houses outside Kathmandu. “If not, we’ll build ourselves.”