School earthquake Nepal safety program Asian Urban Disaster Mitigation Program S afer 4 c ities Case studies on mitigating disasters in Asia and the Pacific The School Earthquake Safety Program in Kathmandu Valley Building safer communities through schools Imagine, the earth shakes for no more than a minute, but “many schools which did not prepare for an earthquake are now suffering. Many school buildings are heavily damaged with children trapped inside of them. The children who are safe are crying from fear . Many parents are worried and angry because their children have not returned home, nor are they in school, nor can they be seen on the road.” The Kathmandu Valley’s Earthquake Scenario (a product developed by the Kathmandu Valley Earthquake Risk Management Project or KVERMP) Abstract sketched this chilling picture against the background of an earthquake The School Earthquake Safety with a magnitude close to 8.3 on the Richter scale – similar in degree to Program (SESP) is one of the priority the catastrophic earthquake that struck Nepal in 1934. initiatives under the Kathmandu Valley Earthquake Risk Management Project Introduction (1997-2001). The program evolved from a simple school retrofit activity Schools in Nepal pose extreme After an earthquake, standing and safe to a comprehensive program of earth- earthquake risks. School buildings, even schools play a crucial role in quake safety involving the whole community. This case study explains rehabilitating the community. Since those built recently, are generally the rationale for focusing on schools constructed without the input of schools are typically well distributed and the comprehensive process of engineers trained in earthquake- throughout the communities, they can be developing and implementing SESP in resistant design or construction. Low used as temporary shelters for the Kathmandu Valley including details of: budgets for the school management homeless, medical clinics and for other a survey and vulnerability assessment system increase the likelihood that poor emergency functions. of public school buildings through materials or workmanship are used. school headmasters; retrofitting and The vulnerability of schools is Before an earthquake, schools can play reconstruction of schools; local illustrated by the 1998 Udayapur a role in educating the children and their masons’ training on earthquake- resistant construction; a participatory parents, relatives and friends in earthquake in eastern Nepal, where community-based approach to approximately 6,000 school buildings earthquake preparedness and mitigation. earthquake mitigation; awareness were destroyed, luckily during non- raising and education on earthquake school hours. In view of the above, the Asian Disaster safety for teachers, school children Preparedness Center’s (ADPC) Asian and parents; empowerment of CHINA Urban Disaster Mitigation Program communities and general improvement implemented the School Earthquake of safety and livelihood; and Safety Program (SESP) as part of institutionalizing SESP in local Great Himalaya Range KVERMP (1997-2001). This case study government. NEPAL describes how SESP started, how it evolved and how it benefited The inside story Dhangadhi communities. 1 A survey of Kathmandu Valley school buildings, page 2 1 Indo - Gangetic Plain Pokhara Response to survey: Nepalganj Mt. Everest retrofit or reconstruct?, page 3 KATHMANDU Bhaktapur 1 Masons: key to safer buildings, INDIA Lalitpur page 4 1 Community empowerment, 0 50 100 km Birganj Dharan page 4 Janakpur 1 Institutionalizing SESP, 0 50 100 mi Biratnagar page 6 Source: http://www.theodora.com/maps/abc_world_maps.html January 2003 1 $ Three reasons to What is an earthquake? factfile focus on safer schools An earthquake is a sudden shaking or rupture in the earth ë Schools house the community’s caused by the release of accumulated stresses in the crust. Epicenter future. The point within the earth where the rupture starts is ëSchools that are still standing and are known as the focus. Directly above it on the surface of safe can be used as refuge after a the earth is a point called the epicenter. Earthquakes are disaster. measured according to these scales: ë Focus Schools can promote earthquake Modified Mercalli scale: Seismic intensity is an indicator preparedness and mitigation in the of the effects of an earthquake at a particular point. Every community. earthquake has many intensities, the strongest usually being at the epicenter. Intensities decrease with farther distance from the epicenter. Intensities are quantified using Issues to consider s the Modified Mercalli scale, which has numerical values ranging from I (detected when implementing only by seismic instruments) to XII (causing total destruction of most buildings). a school earthquake questions safety program to ask Richter scale: The magnitude of an earthquake rates an earthquake as a whole, independent of the effects at any particular point. It is measured on a logarithmic ëHow do we get communities inter- scale to the base 10 called the Richter scale. This means a magnitude 8 earthquake ested in strengthening schools? has an amplitude 10 times greater than a magnitude 7 earthquake, 100 times ë greater than a magnitude 6 earthquake, and so on. Earthquakes of magnitude 1 How do we build local capacities? to 3 on the Richter scale are detected only by seismic instruments. An earthquake ëHow do we mobilize resources? of magnitude 6 will damage poorly constructed buildings and other structures ëHow do we sustain the program? within tens of kilometers of its epicenter. Source: http://earthquake.usgs.gov A survey of Kathmandu Valley school buildings NSET and communities check earthquake-resistance of schools ‘Most schools will perish using “traditional” materials such as adobe, number of schools were then selected to in a big quake’ stone rubble in mud mortar or brick in mud pilot the SESP, starting with one site during mortar – materials which were extremely 1999, then five sites in 2000 and four sites Over 66 per cent of Kathmandu Valley’s vulnerable to earthquakes. in 2001. A non-profit organization, Room public schools were likely to collapse Furthermore, 10 to 15 per cent to Read (formerly Books for Nepal), in an earthquake of intensity IX on Over 66 of the buildings were in very replicated KVERMP’s SESP model in two the Modified Mercalli scale. This per cent of poor condition. Many buildings communities outside Kathmandu Valley in emerged from the NSET Kathmandu had roofs that were on the 2001. (National Society for Earthquake Valley’s public verge of collapse or walls Technology) survey of the schools were that could crumble at any Communities participate earthquake vulnerability of 643 likely to collapse time. These would be in school survey public schools in the three in an earthquake dangerous to occupy even administrative districts of of intensity IX in normal times. In consultation with headmasters, Kathmandu Valley – Bhaktapur, engineers and international experts, a Kathmandu and Lalitpur. on the Modified Based on the school survey, school survey format was designed to Mercalli SESP started as a program to gather data on sizes and shapes of An earthquake of this intensity had scale. retrofit and reconstruct buildings, dates of construction, been experienced in the valley once vulnerable schools. In the process, construction materials, density of students, every 50 to 100 years over the past 900 it became clear that the initiative should extent of engineers’ involvement in years, the last time being in 1934. Such be accompanied by (1) training of masons; building design and construction, and so tremor during school hours could kill more and (2) training of teachers, parents and on. Upon finalization of a survey format, than 29,000 students and teachers (12 children on earthquake preparedness. A headmasters and the school management per cent of total public school occupants) and injure 43,000 more (18 per cent of total public school occupants). The direct loss in terms of damaged buildings would be more than seven million US dollars (based on costs in the year 2000). Including the impact on students, teachers and buildings of private schools, the devastation would be phenomenal. Approximately 60 per cent of the surveyed Bhuwaneshwory Lower Secondary School in Nangkhel, Bhaktapur, public school buildings were constructed before and after retrofitting for earthquake safety 2 committee members from every school in technicians were hired to aid some inputs was less than USD15,000. The the valley, together with authorities from headmasters in completing the involvement of headmasters in the district and regional education offices, were survey forms. A structural The school survey not only shortened invited to participate in seminars that engineer visited 20 per cent involvement of the survey collection time, but promoted awareness of earthquake risk in of these schools to verify headmasters in the also raised people’s awareness Kathmandu Valley. At the seminars, the that the information school survey not of the earthquake risks in their headmasters were requested to assist in collected in the survey community. completing the school survey. A total of forms were accurate and only shortened the 17 one-day seminars were conducted with consistent. During these survey collection Following the completion of participation from 65 per cent of the valley’s visits, engineers also time, but also raised the survey, NSET classified headmasters. These seminars took place