A powerful 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck eastern Afghanistan late on 31 August 2025, with its epicenter near Jalalabad in Nangarhar province. A shortage of female doctors left women untreated as the quake’s toll mounted. Credit: UNICEF/Amin Meerzad

By External Source
KABUL, Sep 24 2025 (IPS)

In normal times, women in Afghanistan face dire living conditions relative to their counterparts in other parts of the world, given the iron grip of Taliban repression. However, the powerful 6.0-magnitude earthquake that struck the eastern Afghan provinces of Kunar, Nangarhar, and Laghman at the end of August was out of the ordinary.

It was the deadliest quake to hit earthquake-prone Afghanistan in decades, and humanitarian efforts to reach the most vulnerable – usually women, children, and the elderly – were overwhelmed.

In the affected areas, a serious shortage of female doctors led to a higher toll among women because male doctors did not have easy access to female victims due to gender segregation

Nearly 700,000 homes and 500 hectares of farmland were damaged in Kunar alone, according to Afghan authorities.

But the only factor that was not a force of nature is the gender-based restrictions instituted by the Taliban, which aggravated the crisis for Afghan women.

In the affected areas, a serious shortage of female doctors led to a higher toll among women because male doctors did not have easy access to female victims due to gender segregation.

“Taliban edicts bar women from moving freely without a male guardian, ban them from many forms of work and strictly limit access to healthcare,” according to a report by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.

In the aftermath of the deadly quake, residents from Kunar and Jalalabad told us that women in these areas faced shortages of safe shelter and drinking water, while also battling women’s health issues.

The condition of women and children in other areas such as Kunar, Nangarhar, and Laghman was equally poor.

The total death toll from the earthquake is estimated at 2,200 people. The exact number of women casualties remains unclear, but health workers in the affected areas have reported high death tolls among women and children.

Sharifa Aziz (a pseudonym), a member of the UNICEF relief team who spent three days in various parts of Kunar province, told us over the phone: “The situation is extremely dire. When we first arrived, women cried tears of joy at seeing us. They said, ‘God’s angels have come to us.’” Their jubilation was understandable.

There were insufficient female workers to serve women’s needs, stemming from the Taliban’s overall clampdown on women’s participation in the labour market. Their participation in international humanitarian organizations’ work is also strictly limited.

As the earthquake was still unfolding, Susan Ferguson, the UN Women Special Representative in Afghanistan, put out a statement: “Women and girls will again bear the brunt of this disaster, so we must ensure their needs are at the heart of the response and recovery,” she warned.

According to her, after the major earthquake that hit Herat in 2023, “nearly six out of 10 of those who lost their lives were women, and nearly two-thirds of those injured were women.”

After the quake struck, local news sources began reporting that the majority of the victims were women and children.

In some households, as many as five or six children lost their lives, and the death toll among women and the elderly was alarmingly high.

The Taliban eventually dispatched a team of mobile health workers to Kunar only after images from social media circulated on local television showing a shortage of female doctors in the affected area, according to Abdulqadeem Abrar, spokesperson for the Afghan Red Crescent Society.

However, residents say that with the rising number of injured people, they continue to face a shortage of female medical staff.

“After the severe earthquake in our area, we came to the hospital and brought in patients here. There is a serious shortage of female doctors. If there were more female doctors here, we would not have had to transfer our patients elsewhere,” complained Chenar Gul, a resident of Kunar.

As Tajudeen Oyewale, UNICEF’s representative in Afghanistan, pointed out in a posting on X, the role of female doctors is critical in responding to disasters such as earthquakes.

He added that female doctors treat children and women as well as men affected by the earthquake in these provinces. However, in humanitarian agencies without female staff, or where access is restricted, it is feared that women can be left untreated for several hours.

The growing concerns over the shortage of female doctors and healthcare workers—a contributory factor to the high toll exacted on women—should have brought home to the Taliban the negative impact of their policy. But in recent remarks, Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban leader, described the issue of girls’ education as “minor.”

For the fourth consecutive year, the Taliban have kept all universities, institutions, and medical training centers for girls and women closed, including specialized nursing and medical technology centers.

The scale of destruction caused by the 6.0-magnitude earthquake was exacerbated by poor infrastructure and a fragile healthcare system—a legacy of a country emerging from decades of military conflict—which explains the unacceptably high number of casualties.

However, it is within human capability to mitigate the severe impact of such recurring events on women. All it takes is for the international community to stand in solidarity with Afghan women by bringing relentless pressure on the Taliban government.

Excerpt:

70-year-old Chiute Tamang, his wife, daughter and son-in-law lost their house when the earth shook on Apr 25, 2015 in Nepal. They now lives a one-room cabin made of a wooden skeleton encased in corrugated iron. Credit: Robert Stefanicki/IPS

By Robert Stefanicki
KATHMANDU, Jul 12 2015 (IPS)

70-year-old Chiute Tamang was working in his field when the earth shook on Apr 25. He grabbed a tree. His wife and daughter were inside the house at the time, but managed to run out. In the blink of an eye, the building turned into a heap of stones. They were the lucky ones.

“Earthquakes don’t kill, buildings do” – this otherwise common knowledge – had just reached Nepal. Almost all the victims were buried in the rubble of their houses made by untrained masons of stones barely stuck together with mud. It is a very popular method, because it is the cheapest – stones and mud are free, bricks and cement cost.

In Ramche, Chiute’s village scattered over the terraced hills of district Dhading, 38 km northwest of Kathmandu, 168 houses out of a total 181 are no longer inhabitable.”Only time will tell if, in the process of planning reconstruction, the government of Nepal will use an opportunity to find out why the Tamangs are so vulnerable to natural disasters and what can be done to protect them from future calamities”

According to the latest government report, the disaster damaged 607,212 buildings in 16 districts. Of them, 63 percent in areas dominated by Tamangs – the largest and the most destitute group among the Tibeto-Burman speaking peoples of the Himalayan region – although they constitute less than six percent (1.35 million) of Nepal’s population.

”Earthquakes don’t kill, inequity does” – out of 8,844 people who died in the earthquake, 3,012 were Tamangs. Over 50 percent of the victims belonged to the marginalised communities. More than half the victims were women.

Ramche is a Tamang village. Some of the people own small plots of land on which they grow corn and potatoes of walnut size, but crops can feed the farmers’ family only for two to three months. For the rest of the year they live on contracted labour.

The residents of Ramche admit they are very poor. Why? Because, their answer goes, their fathers were poor, as well as the fathers of their fathers. They accept this as a judgment of fate and do not feel discriminated against, only showing how inequity is grown into the tissue of the society, the result of concerted exploitation for centuries.

This brawny hill tribe has always provided a labour reserve pool for the rulers of Kathmandu. In the past, Tamangs were prevented from joining the administration and the military. Even today they may man the barricades but have little role in the upper hierarchy of the armed forces or police, and are unrepresented in the country´s national affairs.

Being Buddhists did not immunise Tamangs from the caste system evolved by ruling Hindus. Those who wield power belong to Brahmin, Newars and Chhetri people and these “well-born” elites look down on the Tamangs.

In the blink of an eye, houses turned into heaps of stones when the Apr. 25, 2015 earthquake hit Nepal. Credit: Robert Stefanicki/IPS

Economic deprivation has increased the influx of indigent peasants to the job markets of Kathmandu, where they make up half of the porters and the majority of three-wheeler tempo (”taxi”) drivers. Prison surveys have shown that a disproportionate number of Tamangs are behind bars for criminal offences.

They have never counted on any government’s help, and this time is no different. After the earthquake, the residents of Ramche helped each other, cooked meals together and joined hands to raise themselves up from the rubble. With a little help from NGOs, the situation was brought under control.

One week after the disaster, the residents of Ramche were given blankets, tarpaulins and mosquito nets funded by the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department (ECHO).

Today, the whole village is queuing at the barracks where ADRA, the Nepalese NGO, is handing out big plastic water jars with the blue logo of the European Union and “sanitary kits”: a few tubes of toothpaste, toothbrushes, water purification tablets, sanitary napkins and birth control pills. A young female activist tirelessly explains to one villager after another how to use these items.

Chiute Tamang’s family spent the first three days after they lost their house in a flimsy hut cobbled together with a few pieces of wood. Then made a tent of tarpaulin, where they moved together with goats, their most valuable asset. Livestock, the old man explains, must not be left outside at night because it could fall prey to tigers or leopards.

After one week, Chiute borrowed some money, bought materials and with the help of his neighbours put a house together for himself, his wife, their youngest daughter and her husband.

It has a simple design – a one-room cabin made of a wooden skeleton encased in corrugated iron, the floor covered with oilcloth, and equipped with simple beds, cupboards and a gas cooker.

”Even if this collapses,” says Chiute ironically, “at the worst, the corrugated sheet would pin us down, not stones.”

Construction took two weeks, because the wood had to be brought from a distance. When the house was already standing, the government finally sent some relief – any Nepalese family who lost a house is entitled to a 15,000 rupee (150 dollars) loan. Chiute could pay off half the loan.

Another Ramche resident, 29-year-old Deepak Bhutel, received 180,000 rupees but he had been less fortunate – his wife and 18-month-old daughter lost their lives under the rubble of their stone house.

The amount would be enough to buy a sturdy house, certain to survive any future earthquake but Deepak, together with his older and now only daughter, says he is also going to end up in a corrugated iron-clad cabin. Having lived from hand to mouth all his life, he says he does not want to spend all his wealth on the house.

Only time will tell if, in the process of planning reconstruction, the government of Nepal will use an opportunity to find out why the Tamangs are so vulnerable to natural disasters and what can be done to protect them from future calamities.

Past mistakes should not be repeated, warned Jagdish Chandra Pokhrel, former Vice Chair of National Planning Commission, quoted by ‘Nepali Times’.

Pokhrel recalled the example of the Tamangs displaced when the reservoir in Makwanpur was built in the early 1980s. Around 500 families whose lands were acquired by the authorities did not want cash compensation but resettlement elsewhere.

“But the government gave them money anyway, and very few bought land with that,” said Pokhrel. “Soon, the money was gone and they were destitute.”

Edited by Phil Harris    

The district of Kavre in Nepal was one of the worst casualties of the Apr. 25 earthquake that devastated great swathes of this South Asian nation. Credit: Naresh Newar/IPS

By Aruna Dutt
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 9 2015 (IPS)

As Nepal’s monsoon rains approach, some humanitarian aid remains tied up in the capital Kathmandu and there are concerns that a rush to build shelters could lead to the same shoddy construction that collapsed during the Apr. 25 earthquake, a U.N. official said Wednesday.

John Ging, Operations Director of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), briefed the press about his three days spent in Nepal reviewing the state of the humanitarian situation, response and reconstruction two months after the 7.3 magnitude earthquake."From the outset of the disaster response, Nepalese people, as first responders, were helping each other regardless of gender or other considerations." -- Jamie McGoldrick

“In the urgency to rebuild, and in the impoverishment that is there, we have to be alert to the real danger of there being a ‘build back worse’ rather than a ‘build back better’,” Ging insisted.

So far, an appeal for 422 million dollars has only been 46 percent funded, he said. “We hope to see that mobilised very quickly because people cannot stand in the rain.”

The disaster affected around eight million people – almost one-third of the population of the country – resulting in extreme devastation, with 2.2 million people losing their homes.

Moreover, an estimated 1.5 million children have been directly affected by the impact of the earthquake on Nepal’s education system, with one million children now without a permanent classroom, Jamie McGoldrick, U.N. Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Nepal, told IPS.

Tej Thapa, South Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch, told IPS they have been hearing stories of minority communities having greater trouble accessing aid and have received some anecdotal evidence of problems of LGBTI communities accessing aid.

“Humanitarian and other groups have adopted a ‘do no harm’ principle, where aid is distributed evenly to all communities but separately – physically separately,” added Thapa. “The Dalits queue up in a different line from the high castes.”

This separation confirms the deeply rooted caste system in Nepal which results in human rights abuses towards lower castes, and if not addressed in the Constitution it may prevent the goal of “building back better”, which Ging stated is strongly encouraged in humanitarian efforts.

The hurried drafting Nepal’s Constitution could also be an impeding factor to this goal, as it has been predicted to result in further human rights issues. The Preliminary Draft of the Constitution was approved by Nepal’s Constituent Assembly Jul. 7 although it was due to be completed in 2012.

“The draft as it stands is regressive, particularly on women’s rights, minority rights, identity rights, and press freedoms,” Thapa told IPS. “The current political position seems to be to move ahead with this constitution regardless, and hope that laws and practice will sort out the problems over the years, which is deeply worrying.”

“The constitution is the supreme law of the land and if rights are not protected through that document then there is little reason to believe there will be any further political will to amend the problems,” says Thapa.

“The U.N. stands ready to provide any technical assistance required to ensure compliance of the constitution with the international human rights instruments to which Nepal is a party,” says McGoldrick.

Despite these legal factors, U.N. officials assert that Nepalese communities are working together to assure the people in most need are prioritised and nobody is left behind.

“I commend local authorities and local organisations for their show of true humanity in the face of devastation, that made no distinction between any people,” Ging said.

“From the outset of the disaster response, Nepalese people, as first responders, were helping each other regardless of gender or other considerations,” McGoldrick affirmed, “Most notably, youth took a lead role in coordinating and delivering aid. Also, family members, friends, neighbours, business owners etc., all recognised their role to play in helping their fellow citizens.”

U.N. officials also insist that international humanitarian aid is being distributed evenly among communities.

“The U.N., through the UNDAF, has conducted a thorough analysis of the most vulnerable groups in Nepal and addressed inclusion as a main tenet of its programming. This approach is continuing with the relief and recovery work,” McGoldrick explained.

“Aid is delivered based solely on need and in an equitable and principled manner. Moreover, all humanitarian programming was designed keeping in mind specific needs of vulnerable groups such as women, children, elderly and/or minorities; so as to ensure the aid is provided to them in an equitable and apolitical manner.”

Another preventative factor to ‘building back better’ could be Nepal’s massive debt to foreign lenders of about 3.8 billion dollars, according to the most recent World Bank numbers.

While the earthquake and its aftershocks caused damage amounting to about 10 billion dollars – about one-third of the country’s total economy, the country’s creditors have not agreed on a debt-relief settlement.

Nepal will not receive debt relief from the Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust as it does not “fulfill the criteria of the fund”, says McGoldrick.

Nepal, one of the world’s least developed countries (LDCs), had a projected goal of 6.7 billion dollars for the next phase of rehabilitation and reconstruction of the destroyed infrastructure and services, and received 4.4 billion dollars in pledges at an international donor conference in Kathmandu two weeks ago, although that remains to be delivered.

“We still have a significant shortfall in our humanitarian appeal and we are asking member-states to redouble their effort,” Ging said.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Nepalese people carry UK aid shelter kits back to the remains of their homes, 10 days after the 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck the country on 25 April 2015. Credit: Russell Watkins/DFID

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 26 2015 (IPS)

Blessed with more than 4.4 billion dollars in pledges at an international donor conference in Kathmandu on Thursday, the government of Nepal is expected to launch a massive reconstruction project to rebuild the earthquake-devastated South Asian nation.

But the pledges came with a caveat.“It is critical that the international community and Nepal learn from the mistakes of past emergencies, where up to half of pledges are never delivered on." -- Caroline Baudot of Oxfam

“While donors were generous, many of them strongly emphasised the need for Nepal to strengthen efficiency, transparency and accountability in handling international assistance,” Kul Chandra Gautam, a former deputy executive director of the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, told IPS..

“They also emphasised the need for political stability, early local elections and speedy completion of the long pending Constitution drafting process,” said Gautam, a native of Nepal and a former U.N. assistant secretary-general, who is based in Kathmandu.

A jubilant finance minister, Ram Sharan Mahat, told reporters the donors’ meeting, titled the International Conference on Nepal’s Reconstruction, was “a grand success”.

“The total pledge made today was 4.4 billion, which was more than expected… 2.2 billion in loans and 2.2 billion in grants,” he said.

India’s Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj pledged 1.0 billion dollars while China promised 3.0 billion yuan (483 million dollars) in assistance.

Additional pledges included 600 million from the Asian Development Bank, 260 million from Japan, 130 million from the U.S., 100 million from the European Union and 58 million from Britain, supplementing an earlier offer of up to 500 million dollars from the World Bank.

Nepal had a projected goal of 6.7 billion dollars for the next phase of rehabilitation and reconstruction of the destroyed infrastructure and services.

This was a rather conservative or realistic needs assessment, considering that the estimated loss and damage from the earthquake was over 7.0 billion dollars, and it usually costs more to “build back better” than just the replacement cost of the destroyed and damaged infrastructure, Gautam said.

It was understood, he pointed out, about one-third of the estimated needs would be met from national resources and two-thirds would come from donors.

Donors really opened their hearts for the suffering people of Nepal, he said.

“We were delighted that even small poor countries like neighbouring Bhutan and faraway Haiti were forthcoming with generous pledges of 1.0 million dollars each,” said Gautam.

The United Nations estimated that about eight million people – almost one-third of the population of Nepal – were affected by the earthquake in April, described as “the largest disaster the country has faced in almost a century.”

More than 8,600 people were reported to have died, and according to U.N. figures, more than 20,000 schools were completely or significantly damaged and about a million children and 126,000 pregnant women are estimated to have been affected.

Caroline Baudot, Oxfam’s Humanitarian Policy Adviser, told IPS the proposed investment provides Nepal with a golden opportunity to get people back on their feet and better prepared for the future.

“Now that pledges have been made, Oxfam is calling for communities to be consulted when the reconstruction plan is developed and implemented, continued attention to livelihoods and access to services, and that future disaster risks are reduced through reconstruction.”

She said donors and the Government of Nepal must now ensure there is a long-term plan which listens to communities – putting people at the center of the reconstruction process, which builds improved basic services like hospitals and ensures new buildings are safe and earthquake resilient.

“It is critical that the international community and Nepal learn from the mistakes of past emergencies, where up to half of pledges are never delivered on. Donors must make good on their promises and ensure the finance they have committed reaches those who need it,” said Baudot.

In a message to the conference, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Nepal has stood strong during this crisis.

“I commend the exceptional efforts of the country’s government and people – in particular the youth who have found new and innovative ways to help their country.”

He also said that the United Nations “stands ready to support the government and people of Nepal in this endeavor. I am confident that Nepal, with its resilient people will be able to recover from this devastating disaster.”

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

A major donor conference in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, came to a close on Jun. 25 with foreign governments and aid agencies pledging three billion dollars in post-reconstruction funds to the struggling South Asian nation.

An estimated 8,600 people perished in the massive quake on Apr. 25 this year, and some 500,000 homes were destroyed, leaving one of the world’s least developed countries (LDCs) to launch a wobbly emergency relief effort in the face of massive displacement and suffering.

Two months after the disaster, scores of people are still in need of humanitarian aid, shelter and medical supplies.

Speaking at the conference Thursday, Nepal Prime Minister Sushil Koirala assured donors that their funds would be used in an effective and transparent manner.

Rights groups have urged the government to focus on long-term rebuilding efforts rather than sinking all available monies into emergency relief.

In a statement released ahead of the conference, Bimal Gadal, humanitarian programme manager for Oxfam in Nepal, warned of the impacts of unplanned reconstruction and stated, “The Nepalese people know their needs better than anyone and their voices must be heard when donors meet in Kathmandu. They have been through an ordeal, and now it is time to start rebuilding lives.”

“This conference is a golden opportunity to get people back on their feet and better prepared for the future,” he said.

“This can only happen if the government of Nepal is supported to create new jobs, build improved basic services like hospitals and clinics, and to ensure all new buildings are earthquake-resilient.”

Despite a huge thrust from civil society organisations, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has announced that the country does not qualify for debt relief under its Catastrophe Containment and Relief (CCR) Trust, which recently awarded 100 million dollars in debt relief to Ebola-affected countries in West Africa.

The Jubilee USA Network, an alliance of over 75 U.S.-based organisations and 400 faith communities worldwide, has been pushing for major development banks, including the IMF, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to ease debt payments from Nepal, one of the world’s 38 low-income countries eligible for relief from the IMF’s new fund.

According to Jubliee USA, “Nepal owes 3.8 billion dollars in debt to foreign lenders, including 54 million dollars to the IMF and approximately three billion dollars to the World Bank and Asian Development Bank.

“According to the most recent World Bank numbers,” said Jubilee USA in a statement, “Nepal paid 217 million dollars in debt in 2013, approximately 600,000 dollars in average daily debt payments, or more than 35 million dollars since the earthquake.”

Considering that the earthquake and its aftershocks caused damages amounting to about 10 billion dollars – about one-third of the country’s total economy – experts have expressed dismay that the country’s creditors have not agreed on a debt-relief settlement.

“This is troubling news,” said Eric LeCompte, a United Nations debt expert and executive director of Jubilee USA Network. “Given the devastation in Nepal, it’s hard to believe that the criteria was not met.”

“This fund was created for situations just like this and debt relief in Nepal could make a significant difference,” said LeCompte.‎ “Beyond the IMF, the World Bank and Asian Development Bank who hold about three billion dollars of Nepal’s debt have unfortunately not announced any debt relief plans yet.”

Edited by Kitty Stapp

View of the Third World Conference for Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR) in Sendau, Japan. Vanuatu’s President Baldwin Lonsdale told delegates he was attending because the Pacific island, hit by Cyclone Pam in early March, “wants to see a strong new framework on disaster risk reduction which will support us in tackling the drivers of disaster risk such as climate change". Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri/IPS

By Jamshed Baruah
SENDAI, Japan , Mar 16 2015 (IPS)

Cyclone Pam has not only caused unprecedented damages to the Pacific island of Vanuatu but also lent urgency to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s plea that disaster risk reduction is in “everybody’s interest”.

“Sustainability starts in Sendai,” Ban declared at the opening of the Third World Conference for Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR), the largest-ever high-level meeting on the theme, which kicked off on Mar. 14 in Sendai, the centre of Japan’s Tohoku region, which bore the brunt of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that led to the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster.

The conference is expected to conclude with the adoption on Mar. 18, when WCDRR is scheduled to close, of a new agreement on disaster risk reduction, which will provide guidance on how to reduce mortality and economic losses from disasters.“Disaster risk reduction advances progress on sustainable development and climate change [which] is intensifying the risks for hundreds of millions of people, particularly in small island developing states and coastal areas” – U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

“This is the first stop on our journey to a new future to put our people of the world and this world onto a sustainable path,” Ban told government leaders and civil society representatives from around the world.

“Disaster risk reduction advances progress on sustainable development and climate change,” Ban said, adding that “climate change is intensifying the risks for hundreds of millions of people, particularly in small island developing states and coastal areas.”

Experts consider climate change as the cause for the increasingly unpredictable pattern of cyclonic activity affecting Vanuatu in recent years.

“I speak to you today with a heart that is so heavy,” said Vanuatu’s President Baldwin Lonsdale addressing the opening session, visibly fighting back his tears. “I stand to ask you to give a lending hand in responding to this calamity that has struck us.”

This is indeed a major calamity for the Pacific island nation. Every year it loses six percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) to disasters. “This cyclone is a huge setback for the country’s development. It will have severe impacts for all sectors of economic activity including tourism, agriculture and manufacturing,” said Lonsdale.

“The country is already threatened by coastal erosion and rising sea levels, in addition to five active volcanos and earthquakes. This is why I am attending this conference and why Vanuatu wants to see a strong new framework on disaster risk reduction which will support us in tackling the drivers of disaster risk such as climate change.”

As Vanuata reeled under the impact of the cyclone, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of japan pledged four billion dollars in disaster prevention aid, mainly for developing countries.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) launched an initiative on Mar. 15 to scale up community and civic action on resilience, the so-called ‘One Billion Coalition for Resilience’.

The IFRC has committed itself to mobilising its network of 189 national Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and 17 million volunteers around the world to increase different services that link disaster preparedness, emergency response and longer term recovery needs of local communities.

The Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, commended the IFRC’s efforts to galvanise actions toward making communities more resilient.

“We need to scale up our collective efforts to make sure that hazards don’t become disasters, and we will only be able to achieve this by building alliances at every level,” she said. ”Only in partnership can we contribute to transforming the lives of the most vulnerable people and support their efforts in building stronger communities.”

Apparently realising the need of the hour, top insurers from around the world have called on governments to step up global efforts to build resilience against natural disasters, highlighting that average economic losses from disasters in the last decade have amounted to around 190 billion dollars annually, while average insured losses were at about 60 billion dollars.

A ‘United for Disaster Resilience Statement’ was released Mar. 14 by top insurance companies, members of the UNEP Finance Initiatives’ Principles for Sustainable Insurance (PSI), the largest collaborative initiative between the United Nations and the insurance industry. PSI is backed by insurers representing about 15 percent of the world’s premium volume and nine trillion dollars in assets under its management.

The statement urges governments to adopt the U.N. Post-2015 Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction, emphasising that the insurance industry is well placed to understand the economic and social impact of disasters given that its core business is to understand, manage and carry risk.

Lauding the initiative, Achim Steiner, U.N. Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), said: “The vision and initiative demonstrated by the insurance industry – from the launch of the landmark Principles for Sustainable Insurance at the Rio+20 conference to the strong, united commitments made here in Sendai – provide inspiration and a way forward.”

Another PSI initiative launched in Sendai called on individual insurance organisations to help implement the Post-2015 Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction by making voluntary, specific, measurable and time-bound commitments.

The voluntary commitments will follow the global framework afforded by the four Principles for Sustainable Insurance, and will show concrete actions that build disaster resilience, and promote economic, social and environmental sustainability.

These commitments will be aggregated and promoted en route to a major UNEP and insurance industry event in May this year, which will be hosted by the global reinsurer, Swiss Re.

The commitments will also be promoted by the PSI at the Global Insurance Forum of the International Insurance Society in New York in June. The forum will include a dedicated day at the U.N. headquarters for insurance industry leaders and U.N. officials to address sustainable development challenges and opportunities, from climate change and disaster risk, to financial inclusion and ageing populations.

Edited by Phil Harris    

An intersection showing mostly empty homes at the heart of the Lumane Casimir Village near Morne à Cabri on Sep. 19, 2013. Credit: HGW/Marc Schindler Saint-Val

By Correspondents
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jan 20 2014 (Haiti Grassroots Watch)

Named after a famous Haitian singer, the Lumane Casimir Village sits in the desert-like plain at the foot of Morne à Cabri and will eventually have 3,000 rental units. About 1,300 are now ready.

The project was financed with 49 million dollars from the Petro-Caribe Fund, money that will eventually have to be paid back to the Venezuelan government.

During the May 16, 2013 inauguration, the president handed out keys to a group of families that had been assembled for the media. But they did not move in. From May to September, nobody actually lived in the apartments. Families only moved in starting in October. In the meantime, many were looted.

“Between 120 and 150 apartments were vandalised,” explained David Odnell of the Unit for the Construction of Housing and Public Buildings (UCLBP), one of three government agencies involved with housing. UCLBP is the supervisor of the site.

More than 50 toilets, and dozens of locks, windows, brackets, bulbs, electrical cables and outlets were stolen. Many apartments were also damaged by would-be thieves who used crowbars and other tools to try to wrench sinks, doors and windows from walls.

“The thieves still come,” Bélair Paulin told Haiti Grassroots Watch (HGW). Paulin spends a lot of time in the area because he is waiting to see if he will be chosen as a renter.

About 200 families have already moved in and others have their keys. Some 1,100 homes remain empty.

During a visit to the site on Dec. 20, 2013, Martelly announced that 250 police officers will be getting apartments and handed over keys to 75 of them, again, in front of the cameras. Several later denounced the fact that they were asked to hand the keys back after the ceremony.

All of the apartments have water and electric systems, new trash cans, a gas stove, a container for receiving and purifying drinking water, plants growing in a garden which will benefit from a regular watering service, and the promise of round-trip transportation to the capital for 20 gourdes (about 50 cents).

Under the heavy sun, the sounds of the new residents echo though the site. Voices, doors opening and closing, cars coming and going. The village is coming to life.

According to Odnell, eventually the village will have “a waste disposal system, a police station, a health center, a drinking water reservoir, a public square, a soccer field, a connection with the electricity system, a vocational school, an elementary school and a marketplace.”

The government is also building an industrial park across the street, where – authorities hope – residents can work.

“The mini-industrial park will have all the facilities necessary to create local jobs for housing beneficiaries,” Odnell promised, noting that a Canadian company has already expressed interest.

The park is not yet finished and – as of late 2013 – has not yet been registered as a “free trade zone” industrial park.

Like other projects, the new residents of Lumane Casimir Village are not necessarily earthquake victims. (Read Part One)

“There are three criteria for being eligible: 1) You have to have been affected by the earthquake, 2) the person has to have a family of not more than three to five people, and 3) the person must have a revenue. That is the most important, so you can pay your rent, which will be between 163 and 233 dollars per month,” according to Odnell.

Christela Blaise is one of the new renters. A cosmetician, she has lived at the village with her older sister and baby since October.

“After the earthquake, we lived in Bon Repos on the main highway. We were not direct victims of the earthquake, but like everyone who was looking for a place to live, we got a temporary shelter. But that didn’t last past three months, so we moved back to our home,” she said.

Housing: An immense challenge

The Haitian government recognises that it faces an enormous challenge. Some 150,000 earthquake victims still live in about 300 camps and another 50,000 live in the new sprawling slums Canaan, Onaville and Jerusalem.

Half of the camps have no sanitation services and only eight percent are supplied with water, according to an October 2013 report from the UCLBP and the Camp Coordination and Camp Management (CCCM)/Shelter Cluster, part of the U.N.’s humanitarian presence in Haiti.

Residents of over 100 camps are in imminent danger of being evicted. In December, 126 families were forced to leave their homes and shacks in Canaan, near Village Lumane Casimir, and on Jan. 11, a camp in Delmas was consumed in flames. One woman and three young children were burned to death.

According to the government, the housing deficit will only continue to grow as people leave the countryside and smaller towns and move to cities.

“Haiti needs to meet the challenge of constructing 500,000 new homes in order to meet the current and housing deficit between now and 2020,” according to the UCLBP’s new Policy of Housing and Urban Planning (PNLH), released in October.

The new policy is ambitious but vague. The Executive Summary sketches out five “strategic axes” that will help “grow access to housing,” including “social housing” that meets construction norms, and through the promotion of “models of housing that assure access to basic services.”

The language of the document implies that the government will seek to resolve the deficit in partnership with the private sector. In the introduction to the PNLH, for example, Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe notes that “under the coordination of the UCLBP, the PNLH also makes clear the important role that the private sector is being called upon to play, side-by-side with the state.”

While this kind of orientation should not necessarily be rejected out of hand, already with the Lumane Casimir Village and the 400% and Chavez Houses projects, it appears that the government is no longer going to build social housing that is within reach of the majority of Haitians.

According to the World Bank, 80 percent of the population lives on less than two dollars per day. Even if a couple combines incomes, it would have only about 60 dollars a month. How could that family pay rent that runs from 39 dollars all the way up to 233 dollars per month?

Speaking at an event at the Lumane Casimir Village on Nov. 11, 2013, Lamothe affirmed his pride in the project, which he called “social housing.”

But, if the housing is not for the poor – such as, for example, the majority of the earthquake victims – and if, with monthly rents that reach 233 dollars, it is out of reach of 80 percent of the population, is it really correct to call it “social” or public housing?

Haiti Grassroots Watch is a partnership of AlterPresse, the Society of the Animation of Social Communication (SAKS), the Network of Women Community Radio Broadcasters (REFRAKA), community radio stations from the Association of Haitian Community Media and students from the Journalism Laboratory at the State University of Haiti.

Excerpt:

One of the 400% residents coming home with a bucket of water on Sep. 19, 2013. Credit: HGW/Marc Schindler Saint-Val

By Correspondents
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jan 20 2014 (Haiti Grassroots Watch)

Four years after the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake, questions continue to haunt the four main post-disaster housing projects built by the Haitian government.

Who lives in them? Who runs them? Can the residents afford the rents or mortgages? Are the residents the actual earthquake victims?“Nobody is in control over there. People just seized the homes." -- Miaud Thys

By some estimates, the catastrophe killed 200,000 people and made 1.3 million homeless overnight by destroying or damaging 172,000 homes or apartments. But the new projects do not necessarily house earthquake victims, over 200,000 of whom still live in tents or in the three large new slums.

In total, the new projects, with homes for at least 3,588 families, cost 88 million dollars. (In contrast, international donors and private agencies spent more than five times that amount – about 500 million dollars – on “temporary shelters” or T-shelters.) See HGW #9

Three of the new housing projects are in Zoranje, a new settlement not far from downtown, on the border between Cité Soleil and Croix des Bouquets. The fourth is at the foot of Morne à Cabri, about 25 kilometres north of the capital on the highway that leads to Mirebalais. (Read Part Two)

Clinton’s pet project now home to squatters

On Jul. 21, 2011, President Michel Martelly, former U.S. president Bill Clinton and then-Prime Minister Jean Max Bellerive inaugurated the Housing Exposition, a fair featuring about 60 model homes in Zoranje.

One of the first projects approved by the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, the Expo cost over million dollars in public reconstruction money. Foreign and Haitian construction and architecture firms also spent at least two million dollars more. The objective was to provide models for the agencies and businesses engaged in post-earthquake housing construction.

Everyone agrees the Expo was a failure. Few visited the site and fewer still chose one of the model homes – many of which were very expensive by Haitian standards – for their project. See HGW #20

“There were some really odd examples,” according to David Odnell, director of the government’s Unit for the Construction of Housing and Public Buildings (UCLBP), one of three government agencies involved with housing. “Some had nothing to do with the way we Haitians live or think about housing. It was a completely imported thing.”

Today, surrounded by weeds and goats, the fading and cracked houses are home to dozens of squatter families.

“All the houses have new owners. They have been taken over,” explained a young pregnant girl who said her parents are “renters.”

“Yes, that’s possible,” Odnell, an architect, said in a Nov. 19, 2013 interview. “And you know why. There is a void… and there is no authority there. But [the project] is not exactly a waste. I could call it poor planning, because the houses can always be recuperated.”

Odnell’s counterpart at the government Fund for Social and Economic Assistance agency (FAES), a government office also involved in housing, said much the same thing.

“Aside from the inauguration week, the project has been forgotten,” Patrick Anglade explained. “It’s a problem that can be solved, but we have to figure out how to do that.”

The director of the third government housing agency, the Public Enterprise for the Promotion of Social Housing (EPPLS), had little to say. (“Social housing” is known as “subsidised” or “public” housing in English.)

“We have nothing to do with that,” director Miaud Thys told Haiti Grassroots Watch (HGW).

Anarchy reigns in the House(s) of Chavez

Another new project sits across the street from the Expo: 128 apartments built by the Venezuelan government for 4.9 million dollars (according to its figures) during the Hugo Chavez presidency. They are usually called “The Chavez Houses.”

Earthquake-resistant, sporting two bedrooms, a bath, a living room and a kitchen, and painted in bright colours, today most of the homes house people who simply broke down the doors and moved in. Only 42 of the 128 have “legal” inhabitants: families invited by the Venezuelan Embassy. Empty for 15 months, some were vandalised. Fixtures, toilets, sinks and other items, including water pumps, were stolen. See HGW #12

“Nobody is in control over there. People just seized the homes,” Thys admitted to HGW. “We know that. Now we are trying to recuperate them.”

Inhabitants are already making adjustments: changing some doors, adding rooms and windows, building gates and fences.

Surrounded by neighbourhood men, Jules Jamlee sits on a broken chair across the street from a home that is being expanded. Like his friends, he is insistent about his right to “his” home.

“The president knows very well that we are revolutionaries,” he said. “He might make threats but he knows we don’t agree with them.”

Told of the residents’ insistence, Thys had a response: “Revolutionaries or not, we are not going to lose those apartments. We are going to send those people letters and invite them to leave so that we can recuperate them. Today we are starting with the carrot. We’ll use the stick later.”

The housing development still lacks water and residents complain that the lack of adequate water means that the toilets don’t work well. Many residents instead use nearby weedy areas for their physiological needs.

New Owners Not 400% Happy

Known as the 400% or “400 in 100” project because Martelly promised 400 homes in 100 days, the nearby 30-million-dollar project funded by the Inter-American Development Bank was inaugurated on Feb. 27, 2012. The development has three kilometres of paved streets, a water system (which lacked water until just recently), an electrical system, street lamps and a square with a basketball court.

“Everything was in place so that residents would have all the basic services. In that sense, we proved that in a short time and with minimal funding, we could do well,” Anglade explained in an Oct. 2, 2013 interview.

But not all of the new residents are earthquake victims. Many are public administration employees. There was a rush to fill the houses at the beginning. And there are other complications, because the houses are not gifts. Residents must pay a five-year mortgage.

“During the first phase, and because we were in a hurry… we weren’t that choosy. Some people who got housing do not actually have the means to pay for it,” Anglade admitted.

The mortgages are between 39 and 46 dollars per month. The contract says that “non-payment by the renter/beneficiary for three consecutive months will result in a 5% penalty for each unpaid month” and that “non-payment could lead to expulsion.”

The contract has caused a great deal of grumbling.

“The president did not give us a house. He is selling it to us. They are too expensive. What can a person do in this country where there is no work? How can one find 1,500 gourdes (39 dollars) each month?” asked Yves Zéphyr, an unemployed father of two who has lived in the development since November 2012.

FAES admits it faces a challenge.

“We are not achieving 100 percent payments, not even 70 percent,” Anglade said. “At least 30 percent are behind.”

A small poll by HGW gives an idea of why some people are behind. One-half of 10 residents questioned said they are unemployed.

When the project was launched, the government received financing to prepare the land, build the houses, and set up the electricity system, but not for the actual services necessary for a housing development, like water, septic system cleaning, a marketplace, schools, a clinic and affordable transportation to downtown.

“The project isn’t finished yet,” Odnell noted. “The government needs to continue working, in order to improve the lives of the people there. Normally when you plan a housing development, all of the services are supposed to be in place and the houses come at the end. But just the opposite happened with the 400% development.”

While many residents say they are happy with their new homes, HGW found problems. Some roofs leak every time it rains, and residents say electricity is rare. Some of the houses had been vandalised before residents moved in: tin roofs and toilets had disappeared.

Also, the septic systems for some of the houses are causing problems.

“They fill up in a quarter of an hour!” claimed André Paul, who has lived in “400%” since July 2013. “Some of them are completely blocked, others are just totally filled.”

EPPLS, which shares responsibility with the FAES for the site, recognises that the septic systems were “poorly built.” Director Thys promised: “We will correct them” although he was not sure how that would be funded.

Haiti Grassroots Watch is a partnership of AlterPresse, the Society of the Animation of Social Communication (SAKS), the Network of Women Community Radio Broadcasters (REFRAKA), community radio stations from the Association of Haitian Community Media and students from the Journalism Laboratory at the State University of Haiti.

Excerpt:

Mimose Gérard, 57, washes clothes and collects plastic bottles from the trash in order to survive. She is still living in a tent camp four years after Haiti's earthquake. Credit: Milo Milfort/IPS

By Jane Regan and Milo Milfort
Carrefour, HAITI, Jan 20 2014 (IPS)

Mimose Gérard sits in her tent at Gaston Margron camp, surrounded by large bags filled with plastic bottles. She earns just pennies for each, but that’s better than nothing.

“I’ve lived in the camp since Jan. 13, 2010, when I was set up with a tent. It’s been a painful existence,” she tells IPS. “I’m just a regular person on this piece of land. I have nowhere to go.”"It’s repugnant to see how authorities treat people because of the simple fact that they are poor." -- Sanon Renel

Collecting bottles to recycle is the livelihood of at least a dozen people in this camp that about 800 families call home, located in Carrefour, on the southern edge of Port-au-Prince. Four years after the earthquake, there are still about 300 internally displaced person (IDP) camps mostly scattered around the capital region, and in a large new slum on desertic slopes outside the city.

Gérard is 57 years old, and has 11 children. She also does laundry to earn a few more pennies. Her hands are rough and chapped.

“The conditions are inhumane, but we have nowhere to go. Those whose families helped them have gotten out. But I don’t have anything like that, so I am staying,” she says.

Gérard added that residents are also forced to consume untreated water – in a country gripped by a cholera epidemic.

“We have no toilet. This is where people drop off their bag of fecal matter,” she says, pointing to a weedy area where residents open or dispose of the little plastic bags used as “portable toilets” in the night, when it can be dangerous to leave one’s tent.

On top of thieves, camp residents have to deal with the police and armed men working for landowners.

“The police try to force us to leave the camp,” Gérard claimed. Officers appear and shoot in the air, trying to scare residents. “The owner himself has come three times.”

According to the U.N., residents in about one-third of the 300 or so remaining camps are at risk of eviction.

On Jan. 11, the eve of the fourth anniversary of the earthquake, an inferno raced through the 100 or so tents and shacks on a camp in Delmas, not far from downtown Port-au-Prince. Four people – a 38-year-old woman and three small children – were burned to death and dozens injured.

Aside from transporting some victims to the public hospital and handing out mattresses, municipal and federal authorities have not made any statements, nor have they launched an investigation into the origin of the blaze, which many suspect was arson. The land is owned by a Haitian printing company.

“Four people died in the fire, including three young children, whilst around thirty others were hospitalized with burns. All of the makeshift shelters of the 108 families who lived in the camp were completely destroyed by the flames, along with their personal belongings,” Amnesty International noted in a statement released on Jan. 17.

Sanon Renel, leader of the Front for Reflection and Action on the Housing (FRAKKA) coalition, said the murderous fire and the lack of official response do not augur well.

“It seems like the private sector is stepping up its evictions,” he told IPS. “They realise that the government practically supports their actions, so they can do whatever they want.”

“It’s repugnant to see how authorities treat people because of the simple fact that they are poor,” he continued. “They don’t consider them as human beings. I think they see them as animals.”

Four years vs. 35 seconds

Thirty-five seconds. That’s all it took the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that hit Haiti on Jan. 12, 2010 to wipe out almost a quarter of a million people, collapse almost half a million buildings – leaving 1.5 million people homeless – and trigger widespread destruction. The estimated cost of damages to the housing sector alone almost hit 2.5 billion dollars.

Four years later, some 200,000 people are still stuck in camps, like Gérard. Only 7,515 new permanent houses have been built while 27,000 have been repaired, and about 55,000 families have received one-time payments of about 500 dollars to leave the camps.

But a year later, those families “face another housing crisis as their housing subsidy runs out,” a recent study from the Washington-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti found.

A U.S. government plan to build 15,000 new houses has reduced its goals by over 80 percent, according to the Centre for Economic Policy and Research (CEPR). Now the plan is to build only 2,500. Although USAID, the U.S. Agency for International Development, has built over 900 houses in Haiti, it has decided to withdraw continuance.

Overall, of the 6.43 billion dollars disbursed by bilateral and multilateral donors to Haiti from 2010 to 2012, just nine percent went through the Haitian government while the rest went to foreign contractors.

“It’s a really profitable business for U.S. contractors to make money off of this disaster,” CEPR’s Dan Beeton told IPS. “This was an opportunity to turn a disaster into something that could benefit Haitians as they rebuild their own country, but they were just bypassed.”

“I’ll pick up pots in the street and get 20 to 25 gourdes [46 to 57 cents],” she says. “Every morning when we wake up, we pick up bags of feces and go throw them in a hole. The stench prevents us from cooking.”

Like Gérard, Ilien deplores the lack of potable water.

“When the camp was first built we had drinking water, but not anymore,” she says. “The water we drink isn’t good.”

Nor surprisingly, Ilien and other camp residents are afraid of being infected with any one of Haiti’s water-borne diseases, particularly cholera. Studies by numerous authorities, incuding the U.S. Centres for Disease Control (CDC), say the bacteria was brought to Haiti by Nepali peacekeepers who are part of the 9,500‑strong U.N. Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH).

Introduced to the country in October 2010, to date it has infected almost 700,000 people, killing almost 8,500 of them. The CDC says that approximately two people per day still die from cholera. While U.N. agencies consider it an epidemic and a humanitarian crisis, so far the body has refused demands for compensation.

“Cholera and housing are being ignored, but they do go together,” Beeton says. “There’s no clean water, so the disease will spread. Cholera eradication is also lack of political will.”

The U.N. has 18 organisations – including MINUSTAH – currently operating in Haiti. They collaborate with approximately 43 large non-governmental organsations or NGOs, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the government, and hundreds of smaller agencies.

Reduced funding, however, has caused humanitarian assistance to dwindle, although MINUSTAH’s approved budget has remained high – almost 577 million dollars for July 2013 to June 2014.

“MINUSTAH is a waste of money, in my opinion, because there is no armed conflict in Haiti, and the money could instead be spent on ending the cholera epidemic that MINUSTAH troops started,” Beeton said.

UN-Habitat notes that Haiti already had an immense deficit in adequate housing dating back before the earthquake, with many living in slum areas.

“We are clearly out of the emergency stage and we will allow Haiti to take care of itself, but that cannot go forward unless there are means,” a spokesperson for the agency told IPS.

With additional reporting by Lorraine Farquharson at the United Nations.

Experts warn that climate change is responsible for melting glaciers on the Himalayas. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

By Amantha Perera
JHIRPU PHULPINGKATT, Nepal , Jun 2 2013 (IPS)

Residents of Jhirpu Phulpingkatt, a village nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas, about 110 km from Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, are on red alert.

As the impacts of climate change batter the towering mountains above them, these villagers on the banks of the Bhote Koshi river have started to dread the sound of incoming text messages, which may carry evacuation warnings.

Their fears are not unfounded. Research conducted by experts from the University of Milan shows that the snowline in the Everest region of the Himalayas, also known as the Khumbu region in the northeast of Nepal, has receded by 180 metres in the last 50 years, while glaciers have shrunk by 13 percent.

Last week all eyes were on the Himalayas’ highest peak – 29,000-foot Mt. Everest, whose summit is bisected by the China-Nepal border – in honor of the 60^th anniversary of the first human ascent of the mountain.

But the momentous occasion presented as much cause for panic as for celebration, when images showing bare rock jutting out from under the receding ice caps called attention to the rapidly changing face of this majestic range.

Sudeep Thakuri, who led the Italian team of researchers, told IPS that the continuous and increased melting is most likely caused by rising temperatures, which were 0.6-degrees Celsius higher this year than they have been in previous years.

Together, the two phenomena have led to the proliferation of massive glacier lakes – melting ice held back by natural dams of moraine and debris – that could spell disaster for those living in the rocky ravines down below.

Avalanches, erosion, heavy water pressure and even snowstorms could cause glacial outbursts, “releasing millions of cubic metres of water in a few hours (resulting in) catastrophic flooding downstream”, according to a study by Germanwatch, an NGO dedicated to sustainable development.

Glacier lake outbursts are not uncommon, and over the last century scientists have recorded at least 50 incidents of these icy lakes breaking their dams. One of the most devastating incidents occurred when the Sangwang Cho glacial lake in Tibet burst in 1954, flooding the cities of Gyangze (located 120 km downstream), and Xigaze (about 200 km away).

Now experts warn that the lakes are filling up faster than ever before and new lakes are being created at an alarming rate.

“If climate warming continues, as is predicted, accelerated glacial thinning and retreat are likely,” Pradeep Mool, programme coordinator at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Kathmandu, told IPS, warning that “the danger posed by glacial lake outburst floods will increase.”

According to ICIMOD research, there are over 20,000 glacial lakes in the Hindu Kush Himalayas, stretching from Afghanistan in the west to Myanmar (formerly Burma) in the east.

The Dudh Kosi river basin in eastern Nepal is home to 278 glaciers, some of which are receding at a rate of 74 metres annually. Mool told IPS that the region is now home to 34 lakes, including 24 recent formations, of which ten have been tagged as potentially dangerous.

Mool warned that earthquakes also pose a serious threat. “The Hindu Kush Himalaya region is one of extreme seismic instability. Earthquakes could act as major triggers for glacial lake outbursts,” he stressed.

There has been at least one reported lake outburst in the last 500 years in the Seti Khola region that was triggered by seismic activity, the scientist said. That outburst produced a 50-metre-high debris field in the western region of Pokhara.

According to Thakuri, the future wellbeing of glaciers is largely dependent on the climate, adding that much more concrete scientific research is required to determine possible outcomes.

But those living in the Himalayan foothills, like the villagers of Jhirpu Phulpingkatt, say there is evidence enough of the possible disasters to come.

The steep mountain walls in this village, mostly covered in lush vegetation, are frequently disrupted by deep cave-ins caused by earth slips that follow heavy rains.

At the small power plant that lies just next to the Bhote Koshi river, officials rely on a warning system to give residents adequate notice to escape any lake outbursts.

However the plant’s acting manager, Janak Raj Pant, told IPS that the warning would only give an escape window of between six and 10 minutes, and extends only to the Nepali border, which is just 10 km from the plant. But many of the glacial lakes that could impact this village and others lie in Chinese-controlled Tibet, where the warning system does not reach.

ICIMOD’s Mool told IPS there is an urgent need for better monitoring of lakes and their water levels. He pointed to a few isolated examples in which outlets have been cut into the dams of some glacial lakes in Nepal and Bhutan to let out excess water, but Mool said such preventive action needed be more uniform.

There is also an economic imperative to take action, at least in the Bhote Koshi valley, where Nepali authorities are planning to build at least four new power plants on the river.

Kathmandu’s dense population of 1.5 million people is highly vulnerable to earthquakes. Credit: Naresh Newar/IPS

By Naresh Newar
KATHMANDU, Nov 23 2012 (IPS)

Nepal now ranks 11^th on a list of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries, yet it remains one of the least disaster-prepared nations globally.

Two major earthquakes in the last two years, one on Sep. 18, 2011 and the other on Oct. 5 of this year, have failed to spur the government into action.

Seismologists have warned that another big earthquake is imminent and disaster experts claim that the population of 30 million will grow more vulnerable on a daily basis unless authorities “wake up” to the dangers posed by such catastrophes.

“In our current situation, the consequences of (a) disaster will be out of control and unmanageable. We have to move fast,” Ganesh Kumar Jimee, disaster preparedness manager of the National Society for Earthquake Technology-Nepal (NSET), told IPS.

Experts are particularly concerned about the 1.5 million residents of Kathmandu city, an earthquake epicenter in which most school buildings, hospitals and government offices are not earthquake resistant.

Over 90 percent of residential buildings, designed by ordinary masons with no input from professional engineers, are considered unsafe.

School buildings suffer from the same problem with an estimated 60 percent of the city’s public schools “bound to collapse”, according to the Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre (ADPC).

The World Health Organisation says that hospitals, too, are highly vulnerable.

According to NSET, over 60 percent of hospitals are at risk of damage in the event of an earthquake measuring anything more than 7.0 on the Richter scale. Most of the country’s 70 blood banks are not earthquake-proof.

In addition, dozens of bridges will also be impacted, thus cutting off crucial supply routes in case of an emergency.

Organisations like NSET and the Nepal Red Cross Society (NCRS) claim that 90 percent of the city’s water pipes will be damaged and 40 percent of electricity lines and electric substations will be destroyed.

Furthermore, Nepal’s many radio stations, which play a vital role in communicating disaster-related bulletins, are unlikely to withstand the impact of an earthquake.

According to IRIN news, these 350 radio stations, 36 of which are located in Kathmandu, are crucial sources of information for the country’s population, 44 percent of which is illiterate and relies on non-print media.

Disregarding all the available data on the urgency of the situation, the government has yet to take serious action on earthquake preparedness.

A lackadaisical attitude towards legislation on preparedness is a major obstacle. A Disaster Management Act has been pending for many years due to political instability in the country.

The Act would help establish a comprehensive Disaster Management Authority that will comprise a professional team of disaster experts, rescue teams, financial resources and equipment.

As of now, the only legitimate body tasked with overseeing disasters like earthquakes consists of a handful of people working in a small disaster unit under the Ministry of Home Affairs.

“Hopefully (these steps) will be taken soon and people will take this issue much more seriously from a risk reduction perspective rather than (focusing on) post-disaster activity,” Man Thapa, programme manager of the disaster risk management team for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), told IPS.

The UNDP is working with local municipalities and organising trainings for masons on how to construct earthquake-resistant buildings, which could “help save people’s lives”, said Thapa.

Kathmandu at risk

Kathmandu’s dense population of 1.5 million people packed into a metropolitan area of just over 50 square kilometres presents unique challenges.

The number of housing complexes has more than doubled over the last decade, further crowding the already congested city, according to experts.

Earthquakes are nothing new in Nepal, which has witnessed 16 major earthquakes since 1223. One of the most devastating quakes occurred in 1934, killing over 8,500 people in Kathmandu; another, in 1988, caused 721 deaths.

Given the current population explosion and a boom in unsafe, high-rise buildings, the scale of a similar disaster now is unimaginable.

NSET estimates that an earthquake measuring seven or eight on the Richter scale could destroy over 60 percent of the buildings, kill up to 50,000 people, injure 100,000 and render 900,000 homeless.

While awareness about the possibility of a disaster is high, very little is being done to retrofit houses, schools or even hospitals.

“People are still not paying serious attention to the information available,” Pitamber Aryal, disaster management director of the NRCS, told IPS.

When a 6.9 Richter scale earthquake occurred in northeast India on Sep. 18 last year, its impact was also felt in Kathmandu, causing widespread panic.

People began to flee the city in a chaotic manner, paying no attention to the safety tips that had been disseminated online and aired frequently through the city’s many local radios.

Fortunately, the brief earthquake took place at six in the evening, when all the offices and schools had already closed for the day.

“If it occurred during school or office hours, a lot of people would have been injured and killed as a result of the panic,” Jimee told IPS.

“That was a drill exercise for all the Kathmandu residents on how to act during a (disaster)…let’s hope they have learnt something,” he added.

(END)

Keiko Shoji (left) started sewing classes for women affected by the Great Eastern Quake after the reconstruction of her own home. Credit: Suvendrini Kakuchi/IPS

By Suvendrini Kakuchi
SENDAI, Japan, Oct 10 2012 (IPS)

The debris of the devastated Arahama elementary school yielded two enduring lessons for its principal, Takao Kawamura, in the months after the massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan’s north-east coastland on Mar. 11, 2011.

“The first lesson is that we survived the horrible tragedy simply because we were prepared for disaster,” he explained to a group of international development officials who visited the area on Wednesday on the sidelines of the 2012 International Monetary Fund (IMF)-World Bank (WB) Annual Meetings here.

“The other is the important challenge we face today,” he pointed out. ”We are committed now to be even better prepared for the next disaster by learning from what we missed out on that fateful day.”

Kawamura shared his insights from the rooftop of the now abandoned school, where a rescue helicopter had landed as he instructed a team of teachers to protect the lives of his trapped students after the 10-metre tsunami destroyed the rest of the building.

The experience of communities like Kawamura’s illustrates the need to mainstream disaster risk management, called DRM, into the development agenda under a plan by the Japanese government and the World Bank in Sendai.

The officials’ visit to Sendai was part of the ‘Sendai Dialogue’, where delegates from leading aid and financial organisations, national and local government officials, the private sector and civil society, gathered for two days to discuss ways to strengthen international commitment to mitigate the impact of disasters around the world.

The dialogue also highlighted the focus on disaster risk management and prevention of this year’s IMF-WB meetings.

“We learned many lessons following the disaster through reflecting on the role of a city government in regards to disaster preparation,” Sendai Mayor Emiko Okuyama said in her opening remarks at the dialogue. “Based on a policy of disaster mitigation, we are undertaking a comprehensive approach including the implementation of multiple safeguards and the development of a new environmental policy including energy measures.”

Sendai City, a city of 1.6 million people and the gateway to the north-east of Japan, lost 891 people in the Great East Japan Earthquake. Though by no means a small number, that was a casualty count reduced in no insignificant way by strict quake-resistant building codes in Japan.

Indeed, stories of quake survivors vouch for the need to build resilience at the official, regional and community levels.

Kawamura explained that Arahama, a large flat farm area dotted with 1,600 households just 15 kilometres out of Sendai, had one of the most active disaster preparedness programmes. This was why none of the students died in the school, he added.

In the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami, the children did not panic because rescue drills had been held regularly in the school, one that had also stocked relief supplies. In fact, just a few days before the March 2011 disaster, Kawamura had decided to take the relief goods kept in the gymnasium on the ground floor to higher areas – and this prevented them from being lost in the tsunami.

Data has shown that when the tsunami struck, the school, which had been built as an earthquake evacuation site, held strong as did most buildings across Japan. But what had not been foreseen was the unprecedented height of the tsunami, which reached up to almost 15 metres and swept through the tall pine trees that had been planted on the coastline as a breaker.

Says Norizami Ootobu, who heads a massive debris cleaning programme in Ido, directed under the Sendai city government: “We now realise that it is impossible to be hundred percent secure against a disaster. The best way to deal with the crisis is to put in the prevention steps that will minimise the impact.”

Concrete evidence of the benefits of being better prepared for disaster, in the form of research-based risk assessments, were presented in Sendai by disaster and financial experts.

Disasters are by no means the concern only of poor or developing countries, but they often suffer more damage when these occur. World Bank research has shown that developing countries will be hit heavily by disasters from climate change and vast urban growth. Economic losses have been estimated at one-third of official development assistance, and that 1. 2 trillion dollars have been lost in disasters.

Equally sobering was the statistic that the official budgets for disasters provide for spending less than four percent on prevention. Most of such resources are extended to emergency or reconstruction.

Rachel Kyte, vice president for sustainable development at the World Bank, explained that there has been growing evidence that “greener and inclusive growth with investment in disaster risk management (should be) to be part of global development agendas.”

But officials from emerging economies said this is tough for many developing country governments.

Nadeem Ul Haque, deputy chairman of Pakistan’s planning commission, explained the government’s priorities lie heavily on schemes such as providing jobs for 90 million local youth and providing health and necessary infrastructure.

“Electoral issues are the current demands of the people. The dilemma for governments is current priorities versus future disasters,” he explained.

Sendai’s experience also showed that resilience to disasters did not always mean heavy spending, and can be achieved through community and private sector collaboration.

In fact, the private sector’s role has been significant in Sendai’s post-disaster rehabilitation through the provision of loans for affected businesses and the reconstruction of houses.

Smaller businesses too have contributed solutions not only by providing recovery funds, but by becoming potent players in disaster prevention and preparedness and in the process helping ease the burden on public funds.

Take the case of Takeshi Niinami, chief executive officer of Lawson, a trillion-yen business comprised of convenience stores across Japan.

After the Great Quake, Lawson sprang into action in the Tohoku area by providing food for the tens of thousands who sought refuge in evacuation centres. Eighteen months later, Niinami told TerraViva, the company remains involved by supporting the education for children who have lost homes or family members.

Said Niinami: “Global business today is being able to work closely with the community, which is what I realised through my work in disaster relief. Unless we work to protect the community, business cannot prosper.”

*This story was first published by IPS TerraViva.

Two years after the earthquake and tsunami in south-central Chile, the worst natural disaster to hit the country in half a century, thousands of families who saw their homes destroyed are still waiting for a solution.

The earthquake measured 8.8 degrees on the Richter scale and lasted almost three full minutes, and was followed by a devastating tsunami. At least 520 people died and close to a million were affected, according to official figures.

Two years later, this house in the coastal town of Iloca still bears witness to the devastating force of the tsunami. Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPS

In the early morning hours of Feb. 27, 2010, Rosa Núñez, 75, found herself unable to sleep. Nuñéz lives in Iloca, a small tourist town on the Pacific Ocean coast, 300 km south of Santiago. For many years she ran a little restaurant in a house that was washed away by the sea.

Thanks to her insomnia, Nuñez was awake when the earthquake began and ran out of the house, enduring the tremor outdoors. Her home was roughly 100 metres from the coast, and 30 metres from a tree-covered hill where she took refuge along with her oldest son’s family.

A single classroom in the primary school in Iloca survived the worst natural disaster in Chile in 50 years. Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPS

Once she was safely up on high ground, she turned her back on the ocean so she would not have to witness the destruction. “I will never forget the sound of the sea destroying everything, washing away everything we had built with so much hard work,” she recalls today.

Two hours later, when she returned with her son, she saw that “the sea took everything away… there were no walls, the sea had swallowed up everything,” Núñez told Tierramérica.

Today she lives in a small, solidly built house that she already owned, across from the house she lost, and that she was able to repair with assistance. Her oldest son lives next door, in a small home he constructed from half of a mediagua (a prefabricated wooden house without a bathroom, meant to serve as temporary housing) that someone donated.

Her youngest son, a fisherman, lives in a wooden cabin with a bathroom in a small housing complex donated by a foreigner. Behind it he is building a more solid, permanent home. Now that her restaurant is gone, Núñez depends on the financial support of her children.

The landscape around Iloca, in the central Chilean region of Maule, has yet to recover its tranquil beauty. The coastline is dotted with ruins. What were once luxurious summer vacation homes still look out over the sea, but are now irreparably damaged.

Just a few metres away, fishermen and rural workers live in camps made up of mediaguas.

According to official figures, 76,000 homes have been repaired or rebuilt in the six regions affected – Bío-Bío, La Araucanía, Maule, O’Higgins, Santiago and Valparaíso – while work is currently underway on another 140,000.

But these figures are disputed by the victims of the disaster, who complain of the slow pace of reconstruction.

Lorena Arce, spokesperson for the victims in the seaside tourist town of Dichato, in the southern region of Bío-Bío, maintains that only 10 percent of the homes destroyed there have been rebuilt, and these belong to low-income families living in camps or temporary settlements the government refers to as “villages”.

The other 90 percent of the families left homeless are middle-class, and many of them are not considered eligible for the government reconstruction program.

Senator Ximena Rincón, of the opposition Christian Democratic Party, told Tierramérica that “the government has fixed the numbers to be able to measure greater progress by mixing reconstruction subsidies with ordinary subsidies.” This results in a lack of transparency that makes it impossible to determine the real progress made, she stressed.

President Sebastián Piñera pledged that his government would repair 110,000 homes and build 112,000 new homes by the end of his term in March 2014. This promise will not be kept, predicts Rincón, a senator for the region of Maule.

“There is going to be a great deal of frustration among the citizens over these broken promises,” she warned.

While touring the six regions affected on Feb. 21-27, Piñera reiterated his pledge that “no family will spend more than two winters living in villages that were created as temporary emergency solutions.” However, he admitted that it will not be possible to achieve this goal by the time the next Southern hemisphere winter begins.

In the meantime, Chilean television stations are broadcasting a government publicity campaign that cost 805,000 dollars about the progress made in reconstruction.

The area affected encompasses a strip that stretches 600 km in length.

Nuñéz and most of the other residents of Iloca and the surrounding area say that they have not seen any government contribution to local reconstruction efforts. They have done what they can to get back on their feet by dipping into their own savings and through private donations of mediaguas and building supplies for the neediest.

The waves damaged homes in the foothills more than 100 metres from the coast, such as this house in La Pesca, 5 km south of Iloca. Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPS

Specialists believe that the problem lies in the model for reconstruction, based on the promotion of housing construction through the allocation of subsidies to construction companies.

If the companies deem that the government subsidies fall below the price they would normally charge for the housing constructed, they are simply not interested in such an unprofitable undertaking, and there is nothing the government can do about it.

In addition to the delays, says Lorena Arce, the companies are building homes of lesser quality to compensate for the perceived loss of profitability.

Chile has construction standards to ensure that new buildings are earthquake-proof, but not to ensure that they can withstand a tsunami. This means that the location of new buildings and their proximity to the coast are crucial considerations. Arce reports that properties along the coastline are being expropriated, but, at the same time, large tourism resort-style buildings are being constructed in these same areas.

But she has not given up hope.

“We hope that the government will work conscientiously, that it will recognise that a great deal more construction is needed and that it will provide more resources, because they are needed: reconstruction cannot be done with cardboard. We hope they will show greater will, and adopt state policies that will continue over into the new government that will take office in 2014,” she told Tierramérica.

There are no official figures on damaged or destroyed schools, but many have been replaced with prefabricated modular classrooms, such as those now being used in Iloca, thanks to private donations.

Secondary school students, who in 2011 played a key role in the biggest social protest movement seen in Chile in the 20 years since the return of democracy, are planning demonstrations to protest the slow pace of the reconstruction of schools, while civil society organisations are planning a national public survey on the progress of reconstruction.

*The writer is an IPS correspondent. This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.