Gorkha Earthquake

9 Key excerpts on "Gorkha Earthquake"

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  Disaster Resilience in South Asia

  Tackling the Odds in the Sub-Continental Fringes

  • Iftekhar Ahmed, Kim Maund, Thayaparan Gajendran(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  The case study is based on the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake, underpinned by the analysis of secondary data from published materials and primary data collected through fieldwork and interviews. Published materials included academic papers, industry/government reports and newspaper articles. The main primary data collection method included stakeholder and key informant interviews, and photographic and audio-visual recordings. The interviews were undertaken with people who had experience in earthquake reconstruction, building codes and planning in Nepal. The key interviewees were engineers and government officials working in the field of building code implementation and building construction, and politicians who play an important role in urban development and housing. Interview data was analysed to identify emergent themes.

  Disaster overview: 2015 Gorkha Earthquake

  On 25 April 2015, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck Nepal, just east of Gorkha district. The earthquake was Nepal’s worst in 81 years, causing the deaths of about 9,000 people, injuring 18,000 and displacing more than 500,000; 1,000 health facilities were also damaged (Mishra and Adhikari, 2019; Rafferty, 2015). The Gorkha Earthquake destroyed more than 500,000 houses and damaged another 250,000 houses (NPC, 2015). It also caused landslides and avalanches, crippled transportation networks, levelled villages close to the epicentre, ruined numerous heritage sites and destroyed buildings across Nepal. The strongest impact was felt in remote rural areas, making the response extremely challenging. Over the years, recurrent earthquakes in Nepal have resulted in structural vulnerability of buildings, making them susceptible to collapse during earthquakes (Gautam et al., 2016). Most of the masonry buildings that collapsed during the 2015 earthquake were probably the buildings that survived the past earthquakes of 1934 and 1988 (Gautam et al., 2016) (see Figure 5.2 ). The National Planning Commission (2015) estimated that the total earthquake damage to existing stock of assets was almost US$5 billion. In addition, an estimated US$2 billion of economic losses resulted due to destruction of assets. With both figures combined, this represented an economic impact or loss equivalent to about one third of Nepal’s GDP and well over 100 per cent of the Gross Fixed Capital Formation (NPC, 2015).

  Figure  5.1   Map of Nepal showing the epicentre of the Gorkha Earthquake and the subsequent aftershock

  Figure  5.2   A building in Kathmandu damaged by the 2015 Earthquake; in 2017 it was found to be occupied because of the slow reconstruction process

  The Gorkha Earthquake was extensively covered by the media and has been widely represented in the literature. Some of the main events that followed the earthquake were highlighted by Reid (2018) and Rafferty (2015) and are summarised here: within a day of the earthquake, international emergency response teams arrived. Soon after, a District Disaster Relief Committee (DDRC) was established to coordinate distribution of relief supplies through a ‘one door’ policy. The earthquake was followed by several aftershocks, notably on 12 May 2015, when a magnitude 7.3 aftershock occurred (see Figure 5.1

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  Earthquake Engineering for Dams and Reservoirs

  • Jonathan Hinks(Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • ICE Publishing

    (Publisher)

  About 9000 people were killed and 16 800 injured during the onset of the sequence with a further 100+ killed and 1900 injured in the May event. Some 2.8 million people were displaced with more than 8 million people affected by the seismic events and their aftermath. Several hundred thousand people remained in temporary accommodation for years after the earthquakes. Figure 17.3 Tangjiashan landslide dam. (Photograph by Mr Li Gang) Figure 17.4 Map showing the location of the epicentres of the two large magnitude earthquakes as part of the Gorkha Earthquake sequence (25 April, Gorkha Earthquake; 12 May, Dolakha earthquake) and the rectangular thrust slab involved in the seismicity. The direction and amount of annual foreshortening is also indicated. (After Ader et al ., 2012) Events between 25th April and 5th May 2015 Earthquake age NEPAL NEPAL INDIA NEPAL INDIA NEPAL CHINA NARAY GANDAKI Hour JANAKPUR SAGARMATHA CHINA CHINA BAGMATI 10 ml 20 km Day Week Older 12th May 25th April 36 mm per year Circles = epicentres 315 Earthquake-triggered landslides The April 2015 Gorkha Earthquake occurred because of thrust faulting along the main interface between the subducting Indian plate and the overriding Eurasian plate to the north. Fault rupture propa- gated south-eastward, with maximum slip of 4–6 m beneath the Kathmandu Valley. Maximum fault slip of about 3 m occurred south of the Dolakha epicentre. Strong motion sensor-derived peak ground acceleration (PGA) values were more than 0.5g, although localised areas likely experienced PGA values exceeding 1g. For the Dolakha earthquake, lower val- ues ( >0.2g) were noted, but some areas are likely to have had PGA values up to 0.83g (Collins and Jibson, 2015).

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  Earthquake Time Bombs

  • Robert Yeats(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  Shaded circles: earthquakes damaging Kathmandu. Source: Mugnier et al. (2013), used with permission. 230 earthquake time bombs close to the ramp beneath the High Himalaya and the flat thrust farther south in the direction of the Himalayan front. On May 12, another earthquake of magnitude 7.3 struck the region between Kathmandu and Everest Base Camp, causing add- itional loss of life and heavy damage, not only to historic World Heritage Site buildings in Kathmandu, but also to isolated mountain villages to the east, including Langtang Valley, a scenic trekking route visible from Kathmandu. The location of the earthquake was on the same fault that ruptured in April. This section closes with an earthquake in that part of Kashmir under the control of Pakistan, called Azad Kashmir (Free Kashmir). The Kashmir earthquake, with its epicenter close to Muzaffarabad, the administrative center of Azad Kashmir, struck on October 8, 2005 with a magnitude of 7.6. The official death toll in Pakistan was 75,000, with another 1400 killed in adjacent Indian-administered figure 18.4 Soldiers with buildings damaged by the April 12, 2015 earthquake in Bhaktapur city, 20 km from the Nepali capital, Kathmandu. Source: image (taken April 30, 2015) courtesy of think4photop / Shutterstock.com. earthquakes in the himalaya 231 Kashmir. The earthquake, like the subsequent earthquakes close to Kathmandu, struck within the belt of high seismicity that extends across the Himalaya north of the Himalayan range front (Figure 18.1 map and block diagram), although it was larger than other recent earthquakes in this zone, including the Uttarkashi and Chamoli earthquakes. Much of the region of strongest shaking was in the mountains, and landslides accounted for many of the deaths. Rescue operations were spearheaded by helicopter units from both the United States and Great Britain, thereby saving many lives.

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  Epicentre to Aftermath

  Rebuilding and Remembering in the Wake of Nepal's Earthquakes

  • Michael Hutt, Mark Liechty, Stefanie Lotter(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  Nepal was still engaged in its protracted process of ostensible political transition to a federal, secular, democratic republic when, on 25 April 2015, its central districts were struck by a magnitude 7.8 earthquake. A second quake, of magnitude 7.3, struck the Dolakha district on 12 May, and over 400 aftershocks with magnitudes over 4.0 occurred during the next three months, maintaining a high level of public fear. The hill districts to the north, west, and east of the capital, Kathmandu, bore the very worst of the impact. The earthquakes (primarily the first, which had its epicentre in the Gorkha district) killed some 9,000 people and displaced 2.8 million. They destroyed or severely damaged over 800,000 homes, nearly 7,500 educational institutions, 1,200 health centres, and 750 temples, shrines, and other heritage sites. Damage to the region’s cultural heritage had serious negative implications for Nepal’s tourism industry, which accounts for some 9 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP). If the earthquake of Saturday, 25 8 Mark Liechty and Michael Hutt April, had taken place on any other day of the week, when children were at school, the death toll would have been much higher. The political developments that took place in Nepal in the immediate aftermath of these earthquakes were tumultuous. Indian relief arrived almost immediately, followed shortly by Chinese rescue and relief teams, amid a domestic response in which the Nepal Army and spontaneously organized volunteer teams were the key players. The leaders of the main political parties came together to finalize the new constitution that had been promised for over seven years through a ‘fast-track’ process, resulting in approval by the Constituent Assembly less than five months after the first earthquake (Hutt 2020).

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  Evolving Narratives of Hazard and Risk

  The Gorkha Earthquake, Nepal, 2015

  • Louise Bracken, Hanna A. Ruszczyk, Tom Robinson, Louise Bracken, Hanna A. Ruszczyk, Tom Robinson(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  Identifying the source of a hazard and understanding the magnitude and frequency of a hazard form integral parts of disaster risk reduction. The forecasting of how often (frequency) and how severe (magnitude) earthquakes happen in a region contributes essential information for preparedness policies and practices, such as developing stringent building codes, emergency planning, and awareness campaigns. It is unequivocal that earthquakes are unpredictable, meaning we cannot say when, where, or with what magnitude an earthquake will occur. Nevertheless, statistical tools can provide us with forecasts that form the basis for preparedness by telling us how likely an earthquake is within a specific time frame across a specific area. This allows us to say with some confidence, for instance, what the likelihood of an earthquake occurring in Nepal is in the next 50 years. Such information is critical for preparing for future disasters.

  This chapter begins with a discussion of the tectonics of Nepal and the reasons behind the Gorkha Earthquake. Then the chapter turns to the science of earthquake forecasting to calculate how likely the Gorkha Earthquake was, and thus whether it could have been anticipated, and the probability of future earthquakes in Nepal and the wider Himalayan region. Because earthquakes are complex spatiotemporal phenomena that cannot be understood by observing one event in isolation from others, further analysis is undertaken to try to understand the temporal and spatial dimensions. Finally, a sensitivity analysis highlights the limitations of such forecasts, and the results are discussed and compared with the available literature on previous investigations for the region.

  5.2 Himalayan Seismicity

  The seismicity in the Himalayan region, which extends from Bhutan to Pakistan, is due to the subduction of the Indian plate under the Eurasian plate at an average rate of 20 ± 3 mm per year (Bilham et al. 2001 ). This subduction accumulates an average slip potential of 2 m every century along the Himalayan arc, approximately the same amount of slip generated in the Gorkha Earthquake. In some regions of the Himalayas, an earthquake has not occurred for more than 500 years, meaning more than 10 m of slip has accumulated (Bilham and Ambraseys 2005 ).

  The 25 April earthquake ruptured the Main Himalayan Thrust Fault north of Kathmandu, unzipping for 140 km to the east (Avouac et al. 2015 ). Geodetic measurements from radar and optical images show that the 2015 earthquake rupture was buried for its entire length, with no evidence of rupture reaching the surface (Elliott et al. 2016 ). Previous major earthquakes in Nepal were recorded in 1803, 1833, 1897, 1905 and 1934, but before about 1800, dates for earthquakes are less well known. The 1833 earthquake had a magnitude (M ) of 7.6 and was the last earthquake to occur in the same region as the Gorkha Earthquake (Elliott et al. 2016 ; Avouac et al. 2015 ). Paleoseismic evidence of surface rupture is available for other significant earthquakes, such as the 1934 Bihar-Nepal earthquake (Avouac et al. 2015 ). However, the uncertainties in the slip estimation for this event range from 2 to 6 m, suggesting a highly uncertain recurrence interval (Bilham et al. 2001

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  Recovering from Catastrophic Disaster in Asia

  • William L. Waugh Jr, Ziqiang Han, William L. Waugh Jr, Ziqiang Han(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Emerald Publishing Limited

    (Publisher)

  GoN-NPC, 2015 ). Nepal is in need of investing substantial resources to “build back better,” and the NRA estimates that US$9.3 billion is required for completing the reconstruction works. Although the full budget to address the disastrous damages of the 2015 earthquakes is still lacking, and the responses being delivered by the key actors including government, international and national nongovernmental organizations (I/NGOs), and donors working in the areas of disaster response are not satisfactory, the following tasks have been completed and more attempts are being made.

  Search and Rescue Initiative

  As mandated by the Natural Calamity Relief Act 1982, the Central Natural Disaster Relief Committee (CNDRC) recommended the GoN to declare a state of emergency to highly affected districts. The Cabinet declared emergency to 14 districts: Gorkha, Sindhupalchowk, Dhading, Kavre, Dolakha, Nuwakot, Ramechhap, Sindhuli, Rasuwa, Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Bhaktapur, Makwanpur, and Okhaldhunga.

   

  The National Emergency Operation Centre (NEOC) was activated under the leadership of Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA) to lead a central coordination point in response to disasters, coordinate between government and national and international organizations for relief support. MoHA appealed to national and international organizations, donors, and local communities to contribute in Emergency Operations Centres initiated at the national, regional, district, and municipality levels. A Response Coordination Center was also established to accelerate the Search and Rescue (SAR) operation. There were a total of 4,521 SAR personnel from 34 countries (Algeria, Australia, Belgium, Bangladesh, Canada, China, France, German, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Jordon, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherland, Norway, Oman, Philippines, Poland, Pakistan, Russia, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, UAE, UK, and USA) coordinating with the National Security Forces (Nepal Army, Nepal Police, Armed Police Force) to rescue lives and recover dead bodies. The Multi-National Military Coordination Centre (MNMCC) under the leadership of the Nepal Army operationalized all foreign military assets through daily meetings in the Army Base, while the On-Site Operations Coordination Centre (OSOCC) was established by United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) at the base of operations, which was located at Tribhuvan International Airport.

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  Tourism and Nationalism in Nepal

  A Developing Country Perspective

  • Kalyan Bhandari(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Earthquake and diasporic travel to homeland

  Introduction

  On the 25th of April 2015, Nepal was struck by an earthquake of a magnitude of 7.8 that killed more than 8,800 people and injured another 23,000. It displaced hundreds of thousands of people and made them homeless, and many villages were flattened in the affected regions (National Planning Commission, 2015). The earthquake was a huge blow to the country that was recovering from a decade-long civil war and political turmoil. Tourism was the worst-hit sector, as the earthquake occurred during the first of the two major tourism seasons of the year. According to the Post Disaster Needs Assessment report prepared by the Government of Nepal, nine out of ten planned foreign arrivals cancelled in the aftermath of the quake. Seven out of 10 World Heritage sites in the Kathmandu Valley were directly affected, including some popular trekking routes. In terms of heritage, the earthquake affected about 2,900 structures with a cultural, historical, and religious heritage value. Major monuments in Kathmandu’s World Heritage Monument Zones were severely damaged, and many were completely destroyed. In addition, in more than 20 districts, thousands of private residences built on traditional lines, historic public buildings and ancient and recently built temples and monasteries were destroyed by the disaster. The Post Disaster Needs Assessment prepared by the Government of Nepal suggested the total estimated damage to tangible heritage was around US$ 169 million.

  The aftermath of the earthquake witnessed a remarkable engagement of the Nepali diasporic community throughout the world in the relief and rebuilding process. To the diasporic communities, the earthquake provided a setting for the expression of feelings and love for their home country. As a result, a considerable number of Nepalis from all around the world visited ‘home’. Those who could not visit their families sent back money: for example, a study by the Asia Foundation found that there was an increase in remittances from some countries in the weeks following the earthquake (The Asia Foundation, 2015). Many diasporic organisations helped raise money through charities, and some of them sent contingents of volunteers to directly engage with rescue and relief operations in Nepal. For example, the Non-Resident Nepalese Association mobilised its chapters across the world to raise money and sent their volunteers to help in the relief and rescue operations. Many other emigrant Nepalis acted in their individual capacity. The earthquake instilled a sense of loss and provided an opportunity to bring people from all around the world to connect with their home nation.

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  Integrating Disaster Science and Management

  Global Case Studies in Mitigation and Recovery

  • Pijush Samui, Dookie Kim, Chandan Ghosh(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Elsevier

    (Publisher)

  Middlemiss, 1910 ). In the present context, 2005 Kashmir earthquake has been described in detail.

  26.1.1. 2008 Kashmir Earthquake 7.6 M w

  A devastating earthquake of magnitude 7.6 M w occurred on October 8, 2005 (03:50:38 UTC) with epicenter located at 10 km north–northwest of Muzaffarabad within the Hazara syntaxis of the Indus Kohistan Seismic Zone (IKSZ) at distances of 105 km NNE of Islamabad and 125 km WNW of Srinagar (Jayangondaperumal and Thakur,  2008 ; Mahajan et  al.,  2006 ; Thakur et  al.,  2006 ). It caused death of at least 75,000 persons, injured around 140,000 persons, and made homeless 3.5 million people in Kashmir and adjoining areas of Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan (Dunning et  al.,  2007 ; NDMA,  2007 ). It was one of the most devastating earthquakes in the Himalayan arc in terms of loss of lives and property. The epicenter was located at 34.493N and 73.629E with a focal depth of 26 km. The area had experienced 23 aftershocks of magnitude >5 and 1 aftershock of magnitude 6.2 recorded on the same day of the earthquake (USGS, 2006 ). The aftershocks define a linear belt which corresponds to the NW–SE trending Balakot–Bagh Fault (BBF, also known as Muzaffarabad and Tanda faults), an active fault (Yeats and Hussain, 2006 ) which was mapped by earlier workers (Nakata et al., 1991 ). Teleseismic data indicate reverse faulting on a NW/SE striking fault with 90 × 40 km wide rupture dipping 37° toward NE (Bilham, 2005 ). In the present context, an attempt was made to map the causative fault and associated deformation mainly landslides using remote sensing with limited ground observation due to inaccessibility of the earthquake affected region (Avouac et al.,  2006 ; Champatiray et  al.,  2005; Pathier et  al.,  2006 ; Sato et al.,  2007 ; Thakur et  al.,  2006

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  Earthquakes

  Impact, Community Vulnerability and Resilience

  • Jaime Santos-Reyes(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • IntechOpen

    (Publisher)

  Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Limitation This chapter may not cover earthquake impact associated all the cross-cutting sectors what readers can expect. Author details Shiva Subedi 1,2,3,4 * and Meen Bahadur Poudyal Chhetri 5,6,7,8,9 1 Nepal Red Cross Society (NRCS), Nepal 2 Oviedo University, Spain 3 Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden 4 Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH), Basel University, Switzerland 5 Nepal Centre for Disaster Management (NCDM), Kathmandu, Nepal 6 Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, Australia 7 Paper Review Committee, The International Emergency Management Society (TIEMS), Brussels, Belgium 8 Himalaya Conservation Group (HCG), Lalitpur, Nepal 9 Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT), Bhaktapur, Nepal *Address all correspondence to: [email protected] 69 Impacts of the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake: Lessons Learnt from Nepal DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.85322 [1] Government of Nepal, Ministry of Home Affairs. Presented: National position paper on disaster risk reduction and management Nepal. (018). 03-06 July 2018. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; 2018. p. 1 [2] Chhetri Meen BP. Socio-economic impacts and lessons learned from the Gorkha, Nepal Earthquake 2015. Nepal Centre for Disaster Management. Presented Paper at the IDMC 22-24 October. Gumushane, Turkey; 2018 [3] Upreti BN. Causes, Consequences and Future Earthquake Disaster in Nepal-insights from the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake. Zambia: Department of Geology; School of Mines, University of Zambia; 2015 [4] Government of Nepal, National Planning Commission (NPC). Nepal Earthquake 2015-Post Disaster Needs Assessment; key findings. Kathmandu. p. 98. Vol. A. Available from: https://www. nepalhousingreconstruction.org/ sites/nuh/files/2017-03/PDNA%20 Volume%20A%20Final.pdf [5] Amnesty International Nepal.

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