Vol. 79/No. 17 May 11, 2015
“No one from the government has come to offer us even a glass of water,” Sarga Dhaoubadel, a student outside Kathmandu, told Reuters. “Nobody has come to even check our health. We are totally on our own here.”
Nepal sits on some 92 different active fault lines and geologists had warned new quakes were likely. Little was done to prepare.
More than 8 million people live in areas affected by the 7.8 magnitude earthquake, more than half of them outside Kathmandu. No roads have been built through large parts of mountainous Nepal, so the only way to reach many of these villages is on footpaths now blocked by landslides.
As of April 28 Nepal’s Ministry of Home Affairs confirmed more than 4,600 people dead and at least 9,200 injured. Over 400,000 houses have been destroyed or damaged. And these figures don’t include many more in unreachable rural areas. Only 13 helicopters are involved in rescue operations nationwide, reported the Himalayan Times.
The country’s prime minister the same day said the death toll could reach 10,000.
Aid from Washington and imperialist countries in Europe has been little and late. Secretary of State John Kerry said $10 million is being provided, and a U.S. relief response team of just 70 people arrived April 27. The British government made $7.5 million available to charities, and the governments of Germany, France and Spain said they would offer some financial support soon.
The Chinese and Indian governments both sent search-and-rescue teams, but four Indian air force aircraft carrying aid supplies and personnel couldn’t land in Kathmandu April 27 because they said the airport was overwhelmed.
Poorly constructed buildings
In Kathmandu, many small poorly constructed brick apartment buildings for working people collapsed, while most modern structures were unaffected. “People have built buildings without pillars, without iron rods in the concrete and with very loose concrete,” Youraj Sharma, who works in the construction industry, told the New York Times.Nepal has vast hydropower potential, but the electrical system is so inadequate that power was out up to 14 hours a day in the capital before the quake.
The country has been prone to earthquakes over the centuries, with significant tremblors striking about every 75 years. But little has been done in recent years to employ new technology to reduce their devastating impact.
Earthquake early-warning systems have been developed but are expensive to deploy and maintain. They’re in operation in just a few countries, including the U.S. and Japan.
“If Nepal had a seismic network,” Peggy Hellweg of the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory at the University of California told Reuters, “people in Kathmandu would probably have had 15 to 20 seconds warning.” That could have been enough to take cover under tables or escape collapsing buildings.
Nepal, with a population of 28 million, has nearly 50 percent unemployment and inflation of almost 10 percent. The country’s biggest source of income is remittances from workers abroad, amounting to as much as 25 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. Last year some 1,500 Nepalis a day left for jobs abroad, according to the government. More left unofficially over the border to India.
According to the Nepal Child Labor Report, about 1.6 million children are working in different industries despite the fact that child labor is illegal Most are under the age of 14, the majority girls, reported the Diplomat magazine.
Workers in Nepal are resisting boss and government attacks. In January, for example, health trade unions conducted “relay hunger strikes” with demands that included overtime incentive, food, lodging and an increase in rural allowances, reported the Himalayan Times.
Some 5,000 doctors struck April 1 in solidarity with a doctor on a hunger strike demanding medical services for all citizens and affordable medical training, reported Al-Jazeera.
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