Disaster Mitigation

NEPAL is prone to different types of natural calamities as well as human caused disasters. With the onset of monsoon, the country suffers from natural calamities like floods and landslides. Flash floods and landslides claim hundreds of lives and damage property worth millions of rupees every year. The main culprit behind the nature’s fury is human activities. Rapid deforestation and soil erosion in the mountainous and Himalayan region are partly responsible for the floods and landslides. And this is the period many people, especially poor and downtrodden, mostly living in the countryside fall prey to different kinds of infectious diseases. These are the diseases, which can be easily prevented if timely intervention was taken and people were educated about their causes and consequences. Despite government efforts and priority to health sector and some achievements in the prevention of several contaminated diseases especially during the monsoon season, complete success is yet to be achieved due to the lack of adequate resources and manpower. Nepal faces problems of other disasters like earthquakes. Nepal is an earthquake prone country and experts have warned that a big earthquake may jolt Nepal anytime in the future, which would cause enormous damage to the national property as Kathmandu is more vulnerable. There has been rapid growth of population, expansion of urbanization and unplanned development in the Kathmandu Valley. However, as experts say, most of the houses and buildings have hardly maintained adequate construction standard and given due attention to earthquake safety. So, there has been a greater concern for the mitigation of possible disaster in the capital. Against this background, a seminar was organsied by the Ministry of Home and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in Kathmandu the other day in which participants extensively discussed about the possible ways of mitigating the earthquake damage in the country. JICA had also conducted a survey and prepared a report concerning possibility of earthquake jolt in Nepal, its consequences and possible mitigation measures. We, in Nepal, generally do not have the programmes and the practice of making an advanced preparation for the mitigation of such natural calamities. As a result, the nation and people would suffer heavily as and when the natural calamities occur. The advance preparation to fight natural calamity and mitigation measures need to be made in order to save lives and property of the country. For this, a massive campaign needs to be launched to educate the people about the possible natural calamities and ways to protect lives and property at the time of calamity. This would help to mitigate the disaster to a great extent.

From Darkness To Light

EIGHTY per cent of eye patients in the eastern Terai districts of Nepal, as per a news item, suffer from cataract due to excessive heat, environmental pollution and lack of Vitamin "A". The findings were revealed by no less than the Lahan-based Sagarmatha Eye Hospital, one of the biggest eye hospitals in the SAARC region. For the last 18 years or so, the Sagarmatha Eye Hospital, established with the cooperation of Christophel Blinden Mission, a German non-governmental organisation, has been ministering to the varied medical needs of thousands of eye patients from Nepal as well as India. Amongst the eye patients’ afflictions, cataract is just one. That cataract is curable, at least in its initial stages, is by now known to many people. However, this common knowledge has yet to penetrate among some rural communities, particularly those living in the Terai and hilly areas. It could be for this reason that those suffering from cataract in such communities tend to resign themselves to the further onslaught of this malady, all the while blaming one or the other supernatural power for their affliction. Or, worse still, seek the aid of quacks and faith-healers. Either way, it leads to the further aggravation of the disease, thereby making it difficult for eye surgeons to bring about the necessary cure. Provided, of course, they ever make it a point to visit an eye hospital or camp.

The concerned health authorities, having realised some cataract patients’ penchant for either resigning themselves to their fate or taking recourse to quacks and faith-healers, have started to organise eye camps in the outlying areas. While for some cataract patients attending the eye camps the eye surgeons’ delicate touches have indeed returned the much-missed sight back to their affected eyes, others, particularly those with hardened cases, have yet to see the light. This, at a time when the nation is having its own eye hospitals that are replete with necessary manpower, expertise and treatment facilities to cure cataract and other eye diseases, is indeed unfortunate. Hence, to ensure that cataract patients do seek timely medical treatment either in eye hospitals or eye camps, the concerned authorities should carry out mass campaigns to not only raise the people’s awareness concerning cataract and other eye maladies but also teach them preventive measures to avoid contracting cataract.