Nepal 2015 Earthquake Flashcards
Where is Nepal located?
In Asia, wedged between the North of India and South of China, with the Himalayan mountain range running through
What is Nepal’s capital?
Kathmandu
What plate boundaries surround Nepal?
On the destructive plate boundary, Indian plate (south) which is colliding with the Eurasian plate (north), both are continental plates which cause powerful earthquakes and fold mountains
When did the earthquake hit?
12:21 pm on Saturday 25th April 2015
What is Nepal’s wealth?
In 2015 was 157th out of 185 for wealth
Give positives of mountaineering in Nepal:
On average brings over $300 million, employs about 10% of Nepalese workforce, Sherpas and government officials
Give facts about the earthquake: magnitude, depth and where
Magnitude of 7.9 on the Richter scale, depth of only 15km (very shallow), epicentre just 70km north of the capital Kathmandu
What was the population of Kathmandu in 2015?
1.8 million
List the primary effects of the earthquake:
8632 were killed immediately, 14,500 injured, 18 climbers killed and 61 injured at Mt Everest base camp, 45,000 classrooms damaged, landslides killed 2,500 people, 600,000 homes destroyed, 50% of shops lost (leading to a loss of livelihood), 7,000 schools destroyed
List the secondary effects of the earthquake:
2.8 million left homeless, will take a decade to recover (not helped by COVID-19), 1.1 million children will be denied access to education, series of aftershocks damaged buildings and slowed down response, landslides damaged harvest leading to long term lack of food supplies, tourism was reduced due to damage to heritage sites and closing of Everest (2016 saw a 72% reduction in tourists), $6.6 billion as total cost of rebuilding, 50% of shops were destroyed
What was the short term responses?
people dug with bare hands to try to find people, Funeral piers were set up in streets to dispose of the dead, Rescue teams with equipment sent from USA, UK Pakistan, Germany and India - RAF deployed a C17 Globemaster III on the 30th of April, from Brize Norton, carrying 18 tonnes of supplies including; over 1,100 shelter kits (plastic sheeting, rope and tensioners to keep families sheltered wet weather), over 1,800 solar lanterns to provide lighting and able to charge phones and radios, a total of 18 Gurkha engineers consisting of 12 from 2nd Battalion Royal Gurkha Rifles and 6 from the Queen’s Gurkha Engineers, who assisted in engineering and operated water purification equipment following damage to water supplies and a Land Rover for teams helping with relief efforts
Disaster emergency committee (DEC) launched an appeal and 310,000 people were helped, UK public donates £41 million, 1500 temporary learning centres installed, Oxfam also provided clean water to over 400,000 people, Islamic relief provided 2500 meals to families, Oxfam installed a 11,000 litre water tank and provided a total of 58,000 litre of water, £2.5 million was donated to the UN Humanitarian Air Service allowing organisations already on the ground to deliver aid to isolated areas and more than £300,000 for Mission Aviation Fellowship to provide 2 Airbus 350 helicopters to get help to more remote regions and in particular to stuck climbers (30 were stuck), Operation Sankat Mochan by the Nepalese army began on 26th April 2015
What have been the long term responses?
Asian development bank gave $200 million to help the rebuilding process Medical teams remain active and are educating people in how to respond in future, New national building codes have been created and are starting to be enforced 2019, 3/4 of homes that were destroyed from the earthquake were either fully rebuilt or under repair and over 7000 schools that needed to be rebuilt or repaired where, Facebook designed a safety check for future disasters to enable people to tell loved ones they are ok, Nepalese soldiers and UK a engineers assessed the damaged areas and worked to ensure all building that were still standing were safe, Oxfam ran a cash for work programme, helping 15,000 people earn as they rebuilt their homes, Christian Aid, a charity organisation, were able to quickly distribute water purification tablets and 10,000 hygiene kits for around 50,000 people in regions such as Gorkha, Dhading and Sindhupalchok, £41 million that the British public donated and 15,000 temporary schools where set up in the following months which were helped by the UN ‘education in a box’ program, Temporary lakes formed by landslides that blocked rivers had to be drained, such as in the Kali Gandaki river, this allowed further aid to more remote areas
