It's been one year since the earth shook violently under much of Nepal, destroying lives and damaging thousands of buildings in mere moments.
The epicentre of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake was in the Sindupulchowk region not far from capital city Kathmandu, where I have been living for three years, but vibrations were felt as far away as New Delhi. Over 10,000 people died including 19 climbers alone in the Mount Everest region after avalanches swept the mountain.
I’ll never forget the date of the earthquake, April 25th. It was a normal Saturday, I was upstairs on the third floor of the house with my son Ravi, my husband Sharad and some of my in-laws. I heard a strange noise and looking out the window, I saw the house was swaying, the ground moving beneath us.
After hitting the floor we found ourselves crawling down the stairs. It went on for over a minute - but if seemed like it went on forever. After the shock had passed, and everyone was safe, the destruction became evident.
I have an infant son and was also recently pregnant at the time, so spending the following days and late into the night on the street and not being able to get items out of the house without worry that an aftershock would hit was not ideal. But that was nothing compared to the suffering and destruction that people so close to us in the city were suffering.
Buildings across Kathmandu were no longer safe, especially the high rises which are still unoccupied. We were fearful of moving back inside. It took days to get an engineer to come and assess if the house was safe. But we all continued to sleep on the ground floor for a number of weeks. This fear was only compounded by the 400+ aftershocks that have been felt since, and the second earthquake 17 days later on May 12th.
The second earthquake was on a school day. It was just after lunch and I was walking to the PE field to meet my students when once again that noise struck. I realised later that was the sound of buildings shifting in their foundations.
The school where I work reopened quickly after both earthquakes, and the school community was a great support for students, parents and teachers. The Bunker Hill Pub & Grill that my husband Sharad owns had only opened a few weeks before the earthquake struck, but reopened within days; there was business with all the foreign aid workers and disaster relief workers who were stationed in Kathmandu and providing relief to the devastated countryside. It was so sad to hear the stories from outside Kathmandu, in the disaster in isolated villages up the mountains. We raised money and sent clothes, but were fearful it would never be enough.
After spending time in Ireland after the second earthquake, I returned to Nepal at the end of July. It felt like the country was turning a corner. There was still a lot of devastation and rubble, but people were less fearful, and the aftershocks had lessened in strength, although they were still occurring regularly. There were now tourists on the streets, while still small in numbers.
But the country was about to suffer a fully manmade problem. With any disaster, people feel helpless and disenfranchised. Whether right or wrong, the border tribe began a blockade causing a devastating five-month fuel crisis which saw petrol and cooking gas rise in price five-fold. Imagine if you woke up tomorrow and driving your car or cooking your dinner was five times the price?
This ended an Annus Mirabilis for the Nepali people, who had suffered through both natural and man-made disasters. In Kathmandu we recently celebrated the Nepali New Year and everybody was definitely happy to put the Nepali year 2072 behind them.
A year on however visitors to Kathmandu are still sparse in number. Vendors who work at the world famous heritage sights say the number of tourists has reduced significantly and shows no sign of increasing. Its little wonder; around the city I have seen very little tidying up. The magnificent 17th and 18th century buildings are now riddled with cracks and there are still piles of dusty red bricks.
The humanitarian crisis has passed, but the country has some way to go to get back to pre-earthquake level of activity. This will require long term planning and won’t be completed in a year; the solutions will not be as easy as papering over the cracks in this country’s beautiful buildings.
