Deadly earthquake in Nepal renews fears of an even deadlier earthquake

Officials in Nepal were still assessing the extent of damage on Sunday from the earthquake that struck the country’s west two nights earlier, killing at least 150 people and leaving thousands homeless or afraid to enter to sleep.

But scientists were already renewing stark warnings that this Himalayan country, which sits on the fault lines of two major tectonic plates, must do much more to survive such shocks and prepare for the increasing risk of a much larger earthquake.

An earthquake in eastern Nepal in 2015 killed almost 9,000 peopleand the toll of Friday’s unrestwhich was categorized as medium in intensity, suggested the country is far behind in its preparations.

“You can’t move the population; the whole country is seismic, the whole of Nepal is seismic,” said Amod Mani Dixit, director of the National Society for Earthquake Technology in the capital Kathmandu. “But can we improve the building stock? The answer is yes, we can, and we have shown in many parts of the world, including Nepal, that we can.”

Nepal is a poor country with about 30 million inhabitants and also suffers significantly against the consequences of climate changewith melting glaciers causing flooding and affecting the availability of water for agriculture.

Friday’s earthquake, which was measured by the US Geological Survey at magnitude 5.6 and the Nepal National Earthquake Monitoring and Research Center at magnitude 6.4, struck remote, hilly areas in western Nepal that scientists had identified as particularly vulnerable . The region had built up intense seismic stress since previous earthquakes, they said, and had failed to meet safety measures introduced in the east since 2015.

On Sunday, as efforts shifted from search and rescue to relief and relief efforts, officials estimated that at least 5,000 homes had been destroyed or damaged.

In villages in two of the worst-hit districts, Jajarkot and Rukum West, residents spent a second night under the open sky as their homes were flattened or hit so badly that they feared an aftershock could ensnare them under the rubble.

In Jajarkot’s Bheri township, most mud and brick houses had collapsed, said Krishna Jung Shah, a resident. Electricity poles were destroyed and the darkness made rescue efforts difficult. Many residents went to the grounds of the local tax office, where dozens of tents were set up.

Mr Shah, whose own family had slept outside with sheets borrowed from a neighbour, said villagers knew they were in danger: Previously, smaller earthquakes in the area had caused cracks in older buildings. But they felt they had no options.

“We can’t go anywhere,” he said.

Residents complained that aid was slow to reach them. Many of the affected areas are remote or have difficult terrain, and Nepal has insisted that aid agencies coordinate all their efforts with the government in advance to avoid duplication of efforts with the risk of additional delays.

Dhruba Khadka, a spokesman for the government’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, acknowledged that scientists had warned that an impending earthquake in the west was likely.

Immediately after the 2015 disaster, Nepal ordered provincial and local governments to draw up action plans and enforce building codes, he said. “They enforced the code in new buildings,” he added. “But the mud and stone houses were already there.”

Enforcing building codes to improve earthquake resistance has remained a challenge beyond “a few metropolitan cities,” said Madhav Katwal, an engineer with the government’s Ministry of Urban Development and Building Construction, the authority for drafting building regulations.

“Most local governments have not enforced building codes,” he said, calling enforcement “pathetic” in the hilly areas of western Nepal.

As devastating as the 2015 magnitude 7.8 earthquake was, it may have spared Nepal the worst, say scientists who studied the event. Studies have shown that only some of the tectonic pressure that had built up on the fault lines was released, leaving the possibility of a once-in-a-century earthquake still open.

According to Mr Dixit of the National Society for Earthquake Technology, a million houses have been built or adapted in the affected area to comply with regulations introduced after the 2015 disaster.

But the momentum faded elsewhere in the country, Mr. Dixit said. He estimated that only about a fifth of Nepal’s roughly eight million buildings would meet earthquake resistance regulations.

“What kills is the bad buildings,” he said. “And we have a preponderance of bad buildings.”