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A view of post-quake Bhaktapur you did not see on CNN. In the far distance is another badly damaged building, but most of this street remained intact.



2015-04-26, before major aftershock

All photographs in this issue were taken in

Bhaktapur, Nepal by J.H. Crawford



Feature Article

The Nepal Earthquake from the perspective of Bhaktapur

by J.H. Crawford

Event



This tragedy played out right behind our house. An elderly man was killed in the fall of the building at center-right. The beautiful building at center-left partially collapsed along with its neighbor. If you click through to the large image, you will see that the remaining part is damaged beyond repair. Two other buildings suffered significant damage. There are quite a few clusters of this nature, which suggests "fratricide," one building damaging its neighbors.



2015-04-26, before major aftershock



The epicenter (which is the place where the fault rupture starts, not necessarily the center of damage) was about 80 km (50 miles) to the northwest of Kathmandu. The fault then ruptured in an east-southeasterly direction, which explains why there was relatively little damage to the west of the epicenter. The largest ground slip occurred in an area only 20 km (12 miles) north of Kathmandu.



Some old houses survived, some didn't.



2015-05-02



This was a violent but not extreme earthquake. For comparison, the Alaska earthquake of 1964 was magnitude 9.2, and the 1960 earthquake in Chile was 9.5, which is about as large as earthquakes get and roughly 2000 times as energetic as the recent earthquake in Nepal. The Mercalli Intensity reached IX, whereas the scale runs up to XII. Still, a magnitude 8 earthquake is a major event, and significant damage always occurs. In areas with many buildings that are not earthquake resistant, damage is very heavy.



The end of this house collapsed a few hours later, in the M6.7 aftershock.



2015-04-26, before major aftershock



The initial shock was soon followed by a major aftershock of magnitude 6.6. The next day, an aftershock of magnitude 6.7 struck in the early afternoon and did considerable additional damage, collapsing buildings that had been damaged in the initial shake.



There appeared to be many instances of one building damaging one or two others, but in this instance, the neighboring buildings suffered little damage.



2015-04-26, before major aftershock



Consequences

Kathmandu suffered considerably, with very heavy damage in some parts of the city. The death toll was over 1,000. The collapse of the beautiful Dharara lookout tower alone killed approximately 200 people. It had been built with extremely thick brick walls but collapsed none the less (having collapsed once before and been rebuilt).



Despite a report on CNN that Nepal had been "nearly destroyed," much of hard-hit Bhaktapur remained substantially intact.



2015-04-26, before major aftershock



It was estimated that about 70% of the buildings in the Kathmandu Valley are safe to inhabit, 20% need further assessment and almost certain repair, and 10% must be condemned or have already collapsed. The damaged buildings are, for the most part, not currently inhabited, which leaves an approximate 30% shortage of housing. Many people have left the Valley to return to their home villages, which will ease the situation considerably, but there is an ongoing housing crisis.



Another example of a building that largely protected its occupants but which will probably have to be demolished.



2015-04-26, before major aftershock



Aftermath



Just minor structural damage is enough to impede passage through the street and is a huge threat to people below.



2015-04-26, before major aftershock



Aid was rushed in from all corners of the world, but most of it arrived after the "golden 72 hours," and the impact was small despite the resources committed. As usual, the few people dug out of rubble as long as five days after the earthquake made headline news, but the deeper, sadder truth of the hundreds, perhaps thousands who were trapped alive in the debris but died before they could be reached remains an untold story of agony.



This is a curiously common example of damage. The building is essentially destroyed, but the ground floor walls did not collapse.



2015-04-26, before major aftershock



Lessons



Part of this one building tumbled into the street, partially obstructing it.



2015-04-26, before major aftershock



The Kathmandu Valley is underlain by 100 meters (330 feet) of lakebed deposits consisting largely of clay (which explains the huge brick-making industry here). There is a further 500m (1650 feet) of soft sediment beneath this. The effect of this low-strength sedimentary soil is to convert high-frequency, low-amplitude ground shocks into low-frequency, high-amplitude waves that are exceptionally damaging and lengthen the period of shaking.



Some places escaped visible damage. This photo might have been taken before the earthquake but was not.



2015-04-26, before major aftershock



So much of the inhabited area of the Earth is located on soft soils in earthquake regions that we probably cannot simply move away from the danger. In particular, the problem of soil liquefaction must be carefully considered. When wet sand or clay soils are shaken by an earthquake, they may instantly loose all their bearing capability. In this earthquake, there were quite a few strong buildings in Kathmandu that tipped over, perhaps when their foundations sank into liquified soil. The problem is compounded by the great weight of reinforced concrete and the non-structural brick that is used to close in the large areas between the concrete pillars. The only protection against this is driving deep pilings into the earth and building on top of them. This is expensive, and the pile driving is disruptive.



Sometimes upper stories were damaged, leaving lower stories largely intact.



2015-04-26, before major aftershock



I have long toyed with the idea of putting the surplus car-making industry to work building light-weight housing made from pressed-steel parts. These buildings would more or less float on liquified soil, and even if they toppled over, they would provide considerable protection for their occupants, in the same way that an automobile does in a crash. I have, alas, never thought of a satisfactory way to do this. (A close approach is the use of steel shipping containers to provide housing. They are cheap, light, and easily transported. They are, alas, abidingly ugly.)



Disastrous result of putting heavy, new-style construction on top of an existing old structure.



2015-05-02



In some places in Bhaktapur, new stories were added to existing buildings constructed with brick pillars. The new concrete slab floors are extremely heavy compared to the traditional wood-and-mud floors, and in a number of cases the lower stories were obviously incompetent to carry the loads imposed by the added stories. Sometimes the worst-affected building was a neighboring one.



Another catastrophic failure of a hybrid building. The old brick columns could not carry the load of a heavy concrete roof slab added later.



2015-04-26, before major aftershock



People here largely do not understand the mechanics of building construction. There is, alas, little effective oversight of construction work, and some contractors cut corners to save money.



Many collapsed buildings blocked only part of the street.



2015-04-26, before major aftershock



The "golden 72 hours" is the length of time following an earthquake during which survivors may be pulled out of collapsed buildings alive. After that, most who might have survived the collapse have already died of thirst and injuries. In Nepal, very little effective foreign assistance arrived before the fourth day. I see only two possible solutions to this problem. One would be to have international teams around the world on hot standby, ready to fly to a disaster zone on an hour's notice. This would require in-place disaster response plans for the affected nation, so that incoming teams could hit the ground running. I doubt whether this will actually be achieved in practice.



This one-story workshop spilled into the street, blocking about half of it.



2015-04-26, before major aftershock



I think a more effective approach would be to follow the Japanese model, in which disaster drills are conducted every September 1st and the necessary materiel for rescue is already present in every locality. The community is already trained and organized, and since the organization is local, rescue efforts can begin almost as soon as the shaking stops. This is neither an easy nor cheap model to implement, but it appears to be the most effective arrangement.



Following the heavy aftershock a few hours later, this street was fully barricaded by heavy debris.



2015-04-26, before major aftershock



It will be claimed that the very narrow streets impeded rescue efforts in Bhaktapur, but I do not think wider streets would have made much difference in most of the town. Emergency vehicles arrived in the very center of oldest Bhaktapur within an hour or two of the shake, despite many downed buildings and closed streets. In the Sukuldhoka section, the buildings were very tall and the streets exceptionally narrow, and here there could be some validity to the claim of a need for wider streets, which would in any case have made the district more pleasant to live in. We have no photographs of this area in this issue, but it was the most heavily damaged and featured in the coverage of the mainstream media. Mainly what is needed is not wider streets but stronger buildings.



Poorly constructed additions often collapsed.



2015-04-26, before major aftershock



Recovery



Low buildings did not necessarily survive any better than taller ones. This one was totally destroyed.



2015-04-26, before major aftershock



People are starting to recover their effects from damaged buildings and have begun some demolition work to reduce the hazard posed by damaged buildings. Power is back on in many places but not yet here. (We are depending on our two solar panels to keep phones and computers running.)



Another example of patchy damage. Two buildings here partially collapsed, but the remainder of the street withstood the shock.



2015-04-26, before major aftershock



Nepal does not lack sound building codes, and most recent, well-built buildings survived with little or no damage, as did our house. The most critical need for long-term recovery is to ensure that new buildings are capable of resisting earthquakes of this magnitude and somewhat larger. (Extreme earthquakes do not appear to strike this region, as they do Japan and some other places along the Ring of Fire.)



Even just one of these few bricks would probably kill you if it hit your head.



2015-04-26, before major aftershock



News Reports



Many houses held together enough to save their occupants but dropped a wall. This house probably will have to be razed.



2015-04-26, before major aftershock



In the case of Nepal, exaggerating the severity of the damage will serve to keep tourists away for years, whereas a nearly normal October/November tourist season should be possible and would greatly help the million or so Nepalis whose livelihood depends on tourists. In this article I have tried to present a balanced view of the damage, which, as you can see, is indeed severe in some places and comparatively light in others.



All kinds of help are needed here.



2015-05-02



Aid



This is another example of a heavily-built brick structure that threw its gable end into the street.



2015-04-26, before major aftershock



Useful Web Sites

"Poster of the Nepal Earthquake of 25 April 2015 - Magnitude 7.8" from the USGS, with lots of scientific data on a single large page.

"Earthquake - Nepal - April 2015" a 6-minute YouTube video from CAT news that calmly and accurately describes what happened.

"Magnitude 7.8 NEPAL (PDF!) " an excellent slide presentation from IRIS Education & Public Outreach and The University of Portland.



Our roof deck at sunset two days ago. Life is slowly starting to return to normal in beautiful Bhaktapur



2015-05-01, 6 days after the earthquake









J.H. Crawford lives in Bhaktapur, Nepal. He is the author of Carfree Cities and Carfree Design Manual, and publisher of Carfree.com.





News Bits

The links below will open in a new browser window or tab, depending on your browser; (Ctrl+click may behave differently):

In order to get the earthquake feature published rapidly, the usual capsule summaries have been omitted. Best links come first.



"Only Less Will Do" by Richard Heinberg



"Naomi Klein: Shock of Oil Price Plunge Is Opportunity World Must Seize"



"Amazon's trees removed nearly a third less carbon in last decade  study"



"Scrap fossil fuel subsidies now and bring in carbon tax, says World Bank chief" Major news!



"Global Shale Fail: Oil Majors Leaving Fracking Fields Across Europe, Asia"



"Revisiting the Shale Oil Hype: Technology versus Geology"



"IMF Pegs Canada's Fossil Fuel Subsidies at $34 Billion"



"Death of US Coal Exemplifies Need for Paradigm Shift for Global Energy System"



"The melting of Antarctica was already really bad. It just got worse."



"Europe submits U.N. climate pledge, urges U.S., China to follow"



"The target has to be achieved domestically rather than through offsets that allow member states to buy into carbon-cutting schemes outside Europe." This is really significant.

"Worlds First Full-Scale Clean Coal Plant Opens in Canada"



"Global warming is now slowing down the circulation of the oceans - with potentially dire consequences"



"China Presents the World's First Hydrogen-Fueled Tram" Wireless trams would be a great boon, if they work.



"China Designs the World's First Hydrogen Tram [VIDEO]"



"Rate of Climate Change to Soar by 2020s, with Arctic Warming 1°F Per Decade"



"Unintended Consequences: When Environmental "Goods" Turn Bad"



"The Modernist God That Failed" (Corbu, of course)



"Can the world economy survive without fossil fuels?"



"The Thirsty West: 10 Percent of Californias Water Goes to Almond Farming"



"Oceans Facing Carbon Rates Which Spurred Mass Die-Off 250 Million Years Ago"



"Cycling could be worth as much as £17 billion to the NHS - its worth the investment"



"Booting Corporate Power, Communities Are Taking Back Control of Their Water"



"Fight of the Century: Localization in a Globalized World"



"Economic Collapse Will Limit Climate Change, Predicts Climate Scientist" Surely this is the wrong way to go about it.



"The Brief, Tragic Reign of Consumerism - and the birth of a happy alternative"



"Paris to double city's cycling lanes by 2020"



"Suburbs such as Montgomery County rethink transit to court millenials"



"Cheap coal is a lie  stand up to the industrys cynical fightback"



"American Companies Are Shipping Millions Of Trees To Europe, And Its A Renewable Energy Nightmare"



"Paradise lost, or my childhood on a pre-Thatcher council estate" This is must-read if you are interested in the social effects of Thatcherism.



"The World Bank and the Battle for the Future of Farming"



"L.A. Builds Tiny Parks at Furious Pace"



"UK nuclear strategy faces meltdown as faults are found in identical French project"



"Kathmandu chokes beneath a blanket of pollution" and that's now the least of its problems...





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