Nepal: Earthquake preparedness must become a key priority for Kathmandu

KATHMANDU, 22 April 2009: With the greatest earthquake risk in Asia, the vulnerable communities of the Kathmandu valley need to be prepared to cope with the potentially massive impact of a major tremor. Much better preparedness and disaster management measures are urgently required.

Today's Earthquake Response Simulation Exercise in the Nepalese capital, organized by the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG) and UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and hosted by the Ministry of Home Affairs, highlights key priorities for the Government of Nepal, national and international partners in ensuring that the Nepali people are better prepared to cope with the impact of a major future disaster and that Nepal's international friends are better prepared to help when the time comes.

"We need to build capacity and raise awareness of disaster response at government, civil society and community levels," urged UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, Robert Piper at the INSARAG opening session. "We can and must do more. Together with our partners we can help protect residents, young and old, by taking practical measures to help save lives in the event of an earthquake."

Other key priorities include a new national Strategy for Disaster Risk Management, and the establishment of a state of the art National Operations Centre. The building code needs to be revised and enforced, and support provided to the municipal authorities to do this. Schools and hospitals in the Kathmandu valley are another area of serious concern with few of these structures built to sufficient standards to withstand a significant earthquake.

The Humanitarian Coordinator confirmed that the UN will continue to work closely with the Government of Nepal, as well as international and national NGOs and civil society on these issues. All of these actors play an important role in disaster risk reduction - but they need long term support from donors to ensure sustainable activity. As Robert Piper noted this morning "We cannot predict or prevent earthquakes from happening, but we can mitigate their destructive impact through preparedness activity at all levels. We look to engineers and architects to observe higher construction standards and encourage their clients to support them in doing so. We ask medical staff to review their casualty plans. Parents must start asking school principals what measures have been taken to protect their children from this risk. Above all, we look to the Government to give this issue the priority it deserves and to lead an all-out effort. Improving the regulatory framework for the construction sector may be the highest priority today in the valley, as we watch more and more unsafe structures reaching completion on a daily basis. This is a shared responsibility for all of us."

The INSARAG exercise will bring some 238 participants of which 80 will come from 18 countries together on 22-24 April, and aims to test the response and coordination capacities of national, regional and international urban search and rescue teams, explains Head of the OCHA Nepal office, Wendy Cue. Nepalese disaster response organizations will also become familiar with global standards and procedures, and exercise their policies and mechanisms for interacting with international partners in an emergency situation.

For further information, please contact

Wendy Cue, OCHA Kathmandu (98510-87520), and please visit http://ochaonline.un.org/insarag