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.
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