Sunday, March 13, 2011

The Japan Earthquake March 11, 2011

Gigantic earthquake of Mw 8.8 has hit east Japan on Friday March 11 2011 causing widespread damage. It is the 5th largest earthquake event in the world and biggest in last hundred year of Japan. Many cities have been devastated most affected being Sendai. More than 400 people have confirmed dead and hundreds have been missing.

We have been feeling this earthquake and continuous after shocks till date. Because of strict building codes, the devastation has been limited. Most of the damages have been due to the tsunami nearby the sea shores area like in Sendai city. Hundred of thousands of building have been left without electricity and water. Many hospitals have been stretched to the maximum limit. But because of high disciplined people and well preparedness there is not much panic situation.
What would happen if same event happened in Nepal?
Nepal lies between Indian and Eurasian plate and each year Indian plate moves 2 cm per year towards Eurasian plate thereby causing the stress. Seismologist are predicting gigantic earthquake as pressure has built for last 300 years and it has to be released. Normally Nepal experiences big earthquake in 80-100 years. Hundred of thousands people will be killed because of the building collapse because in Nepal
  • there is no strict building codes,
  • there is poor implementation of codes,
  • there are weak building materials.

Besides these reasons, most of the buildings in villages are non-engineered which are more vulnerable to the quakes. Even in cities many buildings are old and built before the builing code implementation. Last earthquake in Nepal was in 1934 that took more than 10,000 people. The population has increased a lot and so are the buildings. Government has little preparedness to cope up the situation. Most of the time is spent in the political things and there is no time to come for the disaster management. Even political leaers have failed to make constitution in stipulated time of 2 years. Proposed Disaster Management Act has not been acted through the parliament though it was given for approval in 2007. Since 2007, Nepal has seen sea change in politics. County has become Republic from Kingdom, 3 governments have changed. But alas! there is no time for government and political leaders to pass the act and set up the systematic mechanism for the disaster management. SriLanka has set up even disaster management ministry after 2004 tsunami event. May be Nepal is waiting event similar to the 2010 Haiti earthquake to become eye opener. By that time it will be too late as even the lazy current leaders of Nepal will not be able to see the day after that possible doom's day.