Travel Blog by Kunda Dixit. The challenge now is to provide both short-term shelter and long-term housing, mainly in rural areas but also in ravaged urban centres Photo: Sarbendra Pachhai The numbers are staggering: 600,000 homes destroyed, 20,000 schools in ruins, government buildings reduced to rubble, dozens of bazar towns that look like they are carpet bombed.
And that was before Tuesday’s 7.3 aftershock which finished off the houses that were left. No one has even bothered to revise the figures. As logistical hurdles and bureaucratic delays overcome to get more emergency shelter, medicine and food to the affected areas, attention has started turning to the enormous task of rehabilitation and reconstruction. Short-term shelter requires coordination between government and agencies like UN-HABITAT as well as smaller relief groups in order to quickly cover the sheer geographical scale of the affected area. So, like everything else in Nepal, it comes down to implementation. Read also: A concrete future Sonia Awale. Back to the dark age. Nepal’s plan to end electricity rationing by 2017 will not be met because of earthquake damage The first earthquake on 25 April damaged three hydropower plants, under construction on the Trisuli River in Rasuwa district.
Then, as if it was pre-planned, the 12 May aftershock had its epicenter in Dolakha district where the mammoth 456MW Upper Tama Kosi is being built. AFTERMATH: The penstock pipe of the Bhote Kosi hydropower plant has been badly damaged, its powerhouse submerged (below) and access roads blocked by landslides. Photos: Bhote Kosi Power Company Existing hydropower plants like the Bhote Kosi (pic, above)were also severely damaged, knocking out 100MW from the grid.
Nepal earthquakes: Survivors' stories - BBC News. Nepal's damaged buildings pulled down by hand - BBC News. Journey around quake-hit Nepal - BBC News. Unsettled Earth continues to rattle Nepal - BBC News. By any stretch, a magnitude-7.3 quake is a big one.
Tuesday's shaker in Nepal is not quite as bad as the 7.8 tremor on 25 April - which was 5.5-times as energetic - but it is a major quake nonetheless. The location is different. The epicentre this time is about 80km east-northeast of Kathmandu, halfway to Everest. Saving Swayambhu. Among the heritage sites that were damaged in the 25 April earthquake is Swayambhu, the temple on a hill overlooking the city where Manjushree is supposed to have seen a lotus bloom on the lake that was once Kathmandu Valley.
The surroundings of Swayambhu stupa have been badly damaged. Pic: Gopen Rai Since then, Swyamabhu has been a shrine for Buddhists and Hindus alike and has great cultural and religious significance to the people of Kathmandu. However, the 25 April earthquake badly damaged the stupa, chaityas and some of the stone sculptures of gods and goddesses. French archaeologist and art historian, David Andolfatto, who is a UNESCO consultant assessing the damage to Kathmandu’s cultural heritage says up to 70 per cent of Swayambhu may have to be rebuilt.
Uncertainty and Helplessness Become a Way of Life in Nepal. KATHMANDU, Nepal — I am not the old me.
It is not something I would have noticed a month ago. But now I notice it almost all the time. Nepali Villagers Trapped Under Threat of Glacier Floods - GlacierHub. One month after the first of two major earthquakes in Nepal, 38 villages, 834 households and 4600 people continue to wait for substantial relief efforts and remain uncertain about the future.
The first earthquake, which hit on April 25, severely damaged villages in Pharak, in the southern part of the Everest region in Nepal. When the second earthquake hit on May 12, what remained of villages after the first quake was destroyed. Woman in front of a makeshift shelter, salvaging her belongings. She is worried about how she will provide for her family now that she cannot return to her home. (Photo by Pasang and Un Sherpa) The Catastrophe We All Saw Coming. Imagine the Hollywood blockbuster about one boat’s perilous journey in the Mediterranean.
The Eritrean mother with her five-year-old son, the 16-year-old Afghan boy traveling on his own, and the Syrian patriarch with his entire family — they would be the heroes. We would learn through flashbacks the horrors they are fleeing, and see their humanity as they defend themselves and others against a villainous smuggler whom they were forced to turn to as the only way to reach safety. But the film’s main bad guys would be the European Union leaders who bicker behind closed doors about who should go rescue the migrants as their boat sinks, and who will have to bring them to shore and offer them refuge. It would be one helluva movie — if it weren’t already a hellish reality.
So far this year, at least 1,750 people have died in the Mediterranean trying to reach European shores on unseaworthy, overcrowded boats. Nepal EARTHQUAKE Report: The Khumbu - Open for business... almost ~ The People You Meet Along the Way.... The Khumbu, often referred to as ‘The Gateway to Everest’, sees a large portion of Nepal’s 600,000 visitors per year.
With an extensive network of well-maintained stone and dirt trails meandering through friendly towns, past idyllic guest-houses, local farms, and waving children shouting ‘Namaste’, the Khumbu captures both the heart and the imagination. For many people, myself included, the first visit to the Khumbu will inevitably lead to more. 26 houses inundated as quake-torn hill falls onto Kaligandaki river.
As many as 26 houses have been inundated after earthquake-hit hill fell onto the Kaligandaki river, creating a dam as high as 200 meters at Bhagawati VDC 2 in Myagdi district on early Sunday.
Kaligandaki River located at Ramche of Myagdi district has been blocked since 1 am today after a cliff fell into the river. According to Tek Bahadur KC, Chief District Officer of Myagdi district, around 90 percent of the river has been blocked adding they have evacuated locals of Benibazaar and Galeshwor who were residing near the bank of the river. “We used loudspeaker to inform the locals about the blockade of the river and to evacuate somewhere in safe place” said Bikash Timalsina, Chief of Traffic Police Office, Myagdi. Jiri bounces back. Tanka Jirel was in Charikot counting a stack of plastic sheets for survivors of the 25 April earthquake when the aftershock hit.
Here in Dolakha, the aftershock was more destructive than the main earthquake. Clouds of dust rose from the surrounding mountains, as landslides tumbled down the slopes. Jirel ran past collapsed buildings and rubble on the streets to jump on a vehicle to Jiri, passing numerous rockfalls along the 50km road. Quake heightens Nepal landslide concern - BBC News. Unsettled Earth continues to rattle Nepal - BBC News. A 10-Year-Old Makes A Video So We 'Don't Forget Nepal' : Goats and Soda. A 10-Year-Old's View Of The Quake Devastation Like mother, like son. Lucas Zutt is the 10-year-old son of journalist Donatella Lorch, who frequently contributes to Goats and Soda. They've lived in Kathmandu since June 2013. Lucas shared his impressions of the earthquake with NPR after it struck.
And now he's made a video. "My mum has told me that the news stays on a country for only a short time," he says. So Lucas used his mother's iPhone to show the earthquake scenes that have had an impact on him. "They haven't gotten any help," he says about the people in Kot Danda. Lucas is especially worried because the monsoon season starts in a few weeks; rains have already begun. The Himalayan Times (Mobile) The Himalayan Times (Mobile) Back to the earth after the quake. Suk Bahadur Lama of Rayale village of Kavre isn’t too worried about food, like many in this district east of Kathmandu he is more concerned about sheltering from the rain at night. A heap of bricks and timber is all that remains of his house and cowshed. In a sight familiar across the 15 districts ravaged by the earthquakes of 25 April and 12 May , Lama and his family are busy weeding their corn fields, harvesting potatoes and watering the cabbage and cucumber patch right next to their ruined homes and improvised tarp shelters.
Nepal: A Traveler’s Memories. Photo After his grandfather died in 2004, Kashish Das Shrestha, a Nepali photographer living in New York at the time, found himself with a surprise inheritance. Unknown to the 33-year-old, his grandfather, a longtime photographer in Kathmandu, had left him a suitcase of old slides. “It was amazing,” he told me last year. Mr. A site to help coordinate efforts in Nepal in response to the 2015 earthquake. The hills of Nepal are crying, but why aren’t we listening? [Savage Minds is pleased to publish this guest essay by Galen Murton.
Galen is a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography at the University of Colorado at Boulder. His research examines of questions of identity, development, and material culture in the Himalayan borderlands of Nepal and Tibet. He is currently in Nepal conducting research on roads, borders, and trade in Mustang district.] Alpinist - Alpinist.com. Rebuilding Nepal From Near and Afar - Alpinist.com.
No Tents to Brave the Trembling Earth and Naked Sky. Soldiers carry fly the injured from distant villages in Dolakha to Charikot. [Photo: Aditya Adhikari] Dolakha, Nepal: Destruction comes in many forms. No Tents to Brave the Trembling Earth and Naked Sky. China and India 'water grab' dams put ecology of Himalayas in danger. The future of the world's most famous mountain range could be endangered by a vast dam-building project, as a risky regional race for water resources takes place in Asia.
New academic research shows that India, Nepal, Bhutan and Pakistan are engaged in a huge "water grab" in the Himalayas, as they seek new sources of electricity to power their economies. Taken together, the countries have plans for more than 400 hydro dams which, if built, could together provide more than 160,000MW of electricity – three times more than the UK uses. In addition, China has plans for around 100 dams to generate a similar amount of power from major rivers rising in Tibet. A further 60 or more dams are being planned for the Mekong river which also rises in Tibet and flows south through south-east Asia.
The Nepal earthquakes have unleashed a mental health disaster. Nepal’s Aid System Is Broken. So These Lifesavers Hacked It. The village of Dandagaun is hard to reach on a good day. The access road starts at the Bhote Koshi River, a Class V waterway that drains Himalayan glaciers, then heads more or less straight up for 5,000 feet, past tiny villages and mountain streams. After 10 long miles it curves into a bowl that opens to the northeast. Nepal's Peaceful Revolution: Citizens Rise Up To Aid Mountain Villages : Goats and Soda. The Himalayan Times (Mobile) Death, fear, grief: Nepal earthquake survivors struggle to cope with aftershocks and loss - Firstpost. Charities, Locals And Bikers Help Repair Nepal After New Quake : Goats and Soda. Nepal School System Left Shattered in Aftermath of Quake. Photo. Unsettled Earth continues to rattle Nepal - BBC News.
The disaster in Nepal after the earthquake. The succession of earthquakes which continues to rock Nepal has created a humanitarian crisis of comparable scale to the country's 10-year civil war, compressed into the space of less than three weeks. The first earthquake, on April 25, killed over 8,000 people, injured over 18,000, and destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes. Home - southasia.com.au. 'We have nothing': survivors of Nepal's second quake left beyond hopeless. Deja vu in quake-ravaged Nepal. After last month's 7.8-magnitude earthquake in Nepal, century-old Kaiser Library left in ruins. Magnitude-7.4 earthquake strikes Nepal: US Geological Survey.