Nepal Celebrates its Fourth Earthquake Safety Day, January 12-15, 2002

Kathmandu Valley held its fourth Earthquake Safety Day (ESD) on January 15 to commemorate victims of the great Bihar-Nepal Earthquake of 1934, and this time, with more and larger events, greater number of participants worldwide, and bigger impacts achieved.

ESD was in fact a week-long event from January 12 to 15, with a range of education and public awareness activities to remind people of the enormous earthquake risk Kathmandu Valley face. Through a symposium, an awareness rally, a mass casualty simulation, an exhibition, a shake table demonstration, art competition, and the distribution of posters, booklets and leaflets, a wide group of people were being informed about how they could prepare for and mitigate against earthquake.

Since 1999, Earthquake Safety Days had been organized by an Earthquake Safety Day National Committee, chaired by the Ministry of Science and Technology and instituted by the Royal Government of Nepal with activities combined under KVERMP implemented by Nepal’s National Society for Earthquake Technology (NSET). This year, the event was being held and co-organized by Lalitpur Sub-Metropolitan City, one of the three major administrative districts of Kathmandu Valley. The Mayor of Lalitpur, Mr. Buddhi Raj Bajracharya showed his commitment to reducing earthquake vulnerability in Lalitpur by pledging at the Symposium on Experiences in Disaster Risk Management on January 14, that Lalitpur would conduct disaster awareness programs at the community level for all 22 wards of the city and introduce a two-step building permit system with a mid-construction phase technical inspection to ensure safe construction techniques.

ADPC has been a keen supporter of ESD since 1999. This year, a delegation of 8 representatives from ADPC, including Col. Brian Ward, Special Advisor and Director Emeritus, Mr. David Hollister, Deputy Executive Director and Mr. Josh Moga, AUDMP Program Manager, participated and learned from the experience. To facilitate learning across countries, ADPC supported 2 representatives from CARE Bangladesh and 2 earthquake engineering experts from India to the event. The two Indian experts are Dr. D.K. Paul of Roorkee University and Prof. Vinod Sharma of the Indian Institute of Public Administration. In addition, ADPC also sponsored four senior government officials from Uttaranchal to a study tour during ESD through our ADB-supported project.

Col. Brian Ward delivered a speech at the Opening Ceremony of ESD. Please click here to view the speech.

To read an extract of an article written by Shubhekshya Upadhyay, a class seven student studying in Paragon Public School, Battisputali, Kathmandu, please click here.

To view photos, please click here.

To read the program, please click here.