Nepal still largely in ruins

Kathmandu: Last year’s massive earthquake in Nepal killed nearly 9,000 people, yet could have been much deadlier. It was spared not by disaster preparedness, but by the calendar.

It hit on a Saturday. Most children were out of school, and most adults were working in their fields, rather than in the hundreds of thousands of buildings that were damaged or destroyed.

The Himalayan country can’t count on that kind of luck next time, but since it’s in the middle of a highly active seismic region, it can count on another major quake at some point. Yet experts say Nepal and neighboring India have a long way to go to implement earthquake-safe building practices. Nearly a year after the disaster, Nepalese authorities have yet to announce new building codes.

“I haven’t seen any significant initiative or change that would help the next time,” said Mattias Bryneson of the Plan International aid agency. The government has said more than 8,000 schools were damaged or destroyed in last year’s quake.
Still, “similar types of schools are still standing in other parts of Nepal,” Bryneson said.