Kathmandu Valley Earthquake Risk Management Project (KVERMP) PROJECT COMPONENTS Background Earthquake Scenario and Action Plan School Earthquake Safety Education, Training, and Institution Building Earthquake Education Programs Raise Public Awareness, Earthquake Safety Day Fund Raising/Leveraging School Earthquake Safety This activity will result in more informed citizens of Kathmandu Valtev. first evaluation of the earthquake vulnerability of the valley's schools, and proposals to retrofit the most vulnerable. Why Schools? Schools play a vital role in every community. Schools teach civics, educating citizens of their rights and duties. They foster an appreciation of culture through the study of literature and the arts. In schools, students learn the lessons of history, the discoveries of science, and the rewards of public service. Schools benefit the economy by providing a skilled and literate work force. they are used for social gatherings, continuing education, theater and musical productions, and sports. Schools are a measure of community well-being. Earthquake-threatened communities need earthquake-resistant schools. When schools are closed because of earthquake damage, education is delayed and community life disrupted. Repair and construction of school buildings are difficult and expensive after an earthquake, when government resources are strained. After damaging earthquakes, school buildings and their grounds can be used for temporary shelter and emergency response centers. Where school attendance is compulsory, communities have a moral obligation to provide a safe study and work environment. But most important, earthquake-threatened communities need earthquake-resistant school to protect their teachers and children. Establish School Earthquake Safety Advisory Sub-Committee Several aspects of the School Earthquake Safety part of this project require the support and expertise of the authorities who administer schools in Kathmandu Valley, for example, the development of proposals for the retrofit of the most vulnerable schools. Our first step, therefore, will be to appoint an Advisory Sub-Committee consisting of representatives of the Ministry of Education, the three municipalities, the three District Education Offices, international organizations that are working with schools and one or more local structural engineers who are familiar with the process of retrofitting schools, A tentative list of the members of this Sub-Committee appears in Appendix 5. This Sub-Committee will be part of the overall Advisory Committee. We will schedule regular meetings of this Committee throughout the 18 month duration of the project. Key issues to be placed before the Committee are: the overall design of the activity, the design of the KV Earthquake Awareness Day, the performance standard of the schools, and a review of the proposals for school retrofit. Survey of Earthquake Vulnerability of Schools The first step of this activity is to classify the schools in the KV according to earthquake vulnerability. There are almost 2000 schools in the KV, one-third of which are private and two-thirds of which are public. Each school comprises 1-4 buildings. There is neither sufficient time nor money to perform a complete structural evaluation of all these schools. We have decided to instruct the headmasters how to complete a survey that will allow an approximate classification, and this classification will be checked with a more thorough examination by a structural engineer of a sample of the schools. This procedure will be affordable and will raise the awareness of the headmasters. Design Survey Forms Tile survey forms will be designed by adapting some existing forms used by the Building Department. One example is presented in Appendix 3. This will be simplified so that headmasters can fill the forms out. The survey will determine such parameters as: the number and age of the student body; the number of teachers and staff, the number of buildings, their age, the number of floors, their dimensions, toilet facilities, and roof type. Conduct Seminars with School Headmasters We will conduct a series of seminars to inform the headmasters and the School Supervisors and the District Education Officers of all the schools in the Kathmandu Valley of the earthquake vulnerability of their schools. (The headmasters report to School Supervisors who report to the District Education Officers.) There will be a series of 20 seminars over a period of 2 months for the head-masters of each of Kathmandu Valley's schools. Each seminar will be attended by about 100 school masters and will last an entire day. A draft agenda for the seminars is given in Appendix 4. The seminars will consist of 3 segments. The first will be an introduction to earthquakes, earthquake risk and Kathmandu Valley's earthquake risk. The second segment will explain this project's school-related activities. The third segment will describe a questionnaire that we will request each school master to complete (with the help of his associates) to evaluate the structural and non-structural vulnerability of each school. Educational information will be distributed for the school masters to share with their teachers and students. They will be encouraged to include this material as part of the curriculum. The headmasters will be requested to complete the questionnaire after explaining the project to the school teachers. Collection, Computer-entry and Evaluation of Surveys After the seminars, we will collect the completed questionnaires and enter the answers in a database. This information will be evaluated, with the help of local structural engineers who have retrofit buildings, to assess the overall vulnerability of the school buildings in the valley. Field Verification of Sample of Surveys In order to measure the reliability of the survey results, approximately 10 % of the schools will be visited by a structural engineer who will make his own determination of the vulnerability of the schools. His determination will be compared with those made by the Headmasters, using the simplified surveys. Determination of Cost of School Retrofit Next, a local structural engineer, expert in retrofitting buildings, will evaluate several representative examples of the predominant school building types. At the time of writing the proposal, it is believed that there are 3 predominant types. Several examples of each type will be evaluated by the foreign experts, who will outline how the buildings could be made earthquake-resistant and the cost of these retrofit measures. Design Earthquake Preparedness Curriculum Development Currently, the KV school curriculum includes a chapter about the nature of earthquakes, but there is no treatment of earthquake preparedness or earthquake vulnerability. We have spoken to teachers in the KV who welcome the idea of expanding the present curriculum to include earthquake preparedness. The idea is to teach something of the danger created by earthquakes and the steps one can take to reduce that danger. In the course of this Project, we will prepare, in collaboration with a teacher, a draft of an addition to the curriculum. This will be distributed to the schools as a trial, feedback will be obtained, a revision will be written and the final text will be submitted to the Ministry of Education for inclusion in the next textbook printing. Report to School Authorities A short report will be written to the School Authorities about the results of the study and the planned next steps. Prepare and Submit Proposals for School Retrofit Proposals will be written based on the evaluation of the vulnerability of the Valley's schools and the recommended retrofit solutions. At the time of writing this proposal, it is estimated that approximately 1000 schools will need retrofitting (most of the private schools are in rented structures, and therefore probably would not be interested, initially, in paying for retrofitting.) Assuming two buildings per school, this means that 2000 buildings would need retrofitting. Based on experience in other cities of developing countries and on limited experience of retrofitting in Kathmandu Valley, it is estimated that the average retrofit cost would be $10,000 per building. Thus the entire school building stock, protecting the student body and teachers and ensuring emergency response centers would cost only $40 million. While $40 million is not an insignificant amount of funding, we believe that by proposing that the cost be divided among several donors, successful proposals can be written. The proposed project -- of retrofitting some 2000 school buildings -- would have long-lasting, wide-spread effects. It would not only increase the safety of the next generation and provide emergency shelter for displaced persons. It would raise the awareness of the public of earthquake-resistant construction. It would increase employment. It would give an opportunity for training a generation of masons, construction managers, and inspectors on proper construction techniques. It would provide a chance to implement the recently developed building code. The training of the tradesmen could, with proper incentives, influence the construction of new structures and the retrofit of other critical structures throughout the valley. Because of the importance of these proposals, they will be reviewed, not only by the Advisory Committee, but also by Mr. Madhab Mathema and Dr. Richard Sharpe, members of the Project Design Team and each experts in different areas of Kathmandu's earthquake risk. These people's input at this stage will greatly increase the chances of success that these proposals will be funded. Status of the Component (as of February 2000) Established School Earthquake Safety Advisory Committee Methodology for the survey of school building with the involvement of school headmasters established School building survey format designed 16 seminars for training the headmasters conducted School building survey conducted Vulnerability assessment of the school buildings conducted Retrofit options for Nepali school buildings identified Detailed survey and conceptual retrofit design of ten different building typologies completed Retrofit of the existing building of a lower secondary school in Bhaktapur district completed with involvement of local community, government education system and Nepalese businesses in cooperation with expatriate funding agencies, affordability of building retrofit demonstrated in conditions of Nepal Another building of the same school being reconstructed with earthquake resistant elements About ten local masons trained on-the -job Meeting held with the community during Earthquake Safety Day 2000, models of the school building in 1:10 scale tested on a shake table demonstrating the importance and affordability of seismic resistant construction A report on the School Earthquake Safety Program of KVERMP prepared (The draft report is currently under review).