KATHMANDU: A team of structural engineers from Ramboll, a UK-based engineering company, facilitated by UKaid’s Disaster Resilience volunteer programme has carried out earthquake damage assessment of hospital buildings in and around Kathmandu Valley. Structural engineers Jeremy Foster, Sean Smeltzer, Davide Pedicone and Tom Hough of Ramboll got technical support from senior engineers Surendra Bajrachararya and Prabin Bajrachararya of John Sanday Associates to assess the quake-damaged hospitals. The structural engineers teamed with the Ministry of Health and Population since June 11 to issue green stickers to safe buildings, yellow stickers for partially damaged buildings that can be repaired and maintained for operation and red stickers for seriously damaged buildings that need to be demolished and be declared restricted. The buildings of Kanti Children’s Hospital, Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Hospital, Bir Hospital, Bhaktapur Hospital, Paropakar Maternity and Women’s Hospital and Mental Hospital in the Kathmandu Valley were assessed. Chautara Hospital in Sindhupalchowk was also assessed by the team. According to structural engineers, 90 per cent of the infrastructure and buildings of Chautara Hospital are seriously damaged due to deep cracks in the beams, walls and columns. Some of the walls and pillars have been ripped apart. “Economically appropriate solutions will be outlined for structurally damaged buildings. Blocks with no structural damages marked with yellow and green stickers are not necessarily earthquake resistant,” Smeltzer said. The structural engineers of Ramboll will finalise a report on earthquake damage assessment of the hospitals with the help of the Department for International Development, UKaid Programme, Turner and Townsend by July 7. “Typical details of repair, retrofit, demolition and rebuilding will be indicators for quantifying the estimated cost of the damaged hospital buildings,” Smeltzer said. Earlier, Nepal Engineers’ Association and the Department of Urban Development and Building Construction had assessed the damaged hospital buildings to suggest safety measures for medical staff and officials in the aftermath of the April 25 earthquake. However, according to the structural engineers, the staff and officials were found to be operating health services even from buildings with red stickers. These could collapse even due to aftershocks. Shanta Bahadur Shrestha, MoHP Secretary, urged the structural engineers to come up with estimated cost for repair, reconstruction, retrofitting and demolition of the damaged hospital buildings before allocating budget for health services and infrastructure for the next fiscal.