We cannot predict an earthquake but we can stay well prepared to mitigate the loss of lives and property
An earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale that struck Doti of Sudupaschim Province early Wednesday morning killed six people while damaging homes and local infrastructure – a grim reminder of how prone Nepal is to the destructive force of nature.
The quake shook the area at 2:12 local time when people were fast asleep in their beds, quite assured that an earthquake would not strike them after having felt two foreshocks at 9:07 and 9:56 pm respectively.
The Wednesday morning quake has affected Doti, and the neighbouring districts of Bajhang, Bajura and Baitadi – remote districts with little development activities. It will take quite some time to collect full data of the scale of the devastation, especially with the parties and the government focused on the federal and provincial elections. According to the preliminary findings, the quake has destroyed homes, school buildings, a health post and even a micro hydropower project. The security forces have been mobilised to tend to their immediate needs, but proper rehabilitation should follow after assessing the damage done.
The Doti quake is the second largest earthquake to hit Nepal after the highly destructive 7.8 magnitude Gorkha quake of April 2015 that killed nearly 9,000 people and injured 22,000 more. Apart from destroying tens of thousands of homes and monuments, the Gorkha quake had also triggered avalanches on Everest and in the Langtang Valley, killing dozens and sending many more missing. Another 200 people were killed and 12 times as many injured when a major aftershock of 7.3 magnitude rattled the country on May 12 that year. The earthquake in Doti is also the largest to hit far west Nepal after 40 years, when the 1980 quake, also of 6.6 magnitude, killed more than 170 people in Bajhang and destroyed 10,000 homes. The region saw another major quake of 6.3 magnitude in 1997, not to mention numerous tremors that have been rattling the area every now and then.
Loss of life and destruction of property and infrastructure could have been many times more had the Wednesday quake taken place in a densely populated urban centre. But even when sparsely populated, the topography makes the hills and mountains particularly susceptible to massive destruction during an earthquake. We cannot predict an earthquake but we can stay well prepared to mitigate the loss of lives and property. In 2010, two powerful earthquakes struck Chile and Haiti, the former by an 8.8 magnitude quake and the latter by a 7 magnitude one.
However, if 521 people died in Chile, Haiti saw a staggering 250,000 deaths. Our own experience tells us that loss of lives in 2015 would have been greater had it occurred on a working day instead of on a Saturday.
Nepal lies in an earthquake prone area, and it would be wise for the people to religiously adhere to the building code that the government has formulated.
Old quarters of the Kathmandu Valley with the poorly-built high-rises springing up along narrow alleys are a death trap, with no escape routes. Urban centres are running out of open spaces, so essential for people to seek shelter when disaster strikes. It is in the people's own interest to learn lessons from recent experiences.
Work in tandem
The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) has accused the Special Court (SC) of not weighing evidence properly in corruption cases filed by the anti-graft body. Accused of not carrying out a thorough investigation before filing corruption cases against the accused in the SC, as a result of which the conviction rate is dipping, the CIAA claimed that of the 163 cases adjudicated by the Special Court in the current fiscal, the anti-graft body had appealed against 122 verdicts, where the Special Court did not accept the CIAA's claims. Last year, out of 148 cases of abuse of authority that the CIAA had filed at the SC, the conviction rate was only 38.81 per cent.
Although the CIAA has admitted to not being able to gather enough evidence in a few cases, it believed the Special Court had not adequately weighed the evidence in many cases. The SC is also delivering acquittal verdict in most of the cases on the basis of its precedent that upheld the CIAA's sting operation illegal.
It seems that there is a lack of coordination between the two agencies to deal with corruption cases. In this regard, the CIAA and the SC should work in tandem to bring corruption cases to a logical conclusion.
A version of this article appears in the print on November 11, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.
