Case 2: Remaining vigilant to earthquake risk in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal
The Kathmandu Valley in Nepal is in a seismically active zone but there has been no major earthquake
there since 1934; very few living people have a memory of this event. The population of the valley has
increased greatly since then and so a future quake could be devastating if they are not prepared for it.
Under a programme organised by the Nepal National Society for Earthquake Technology (NSET), 400
public schools in the valley have been rebuilt or strengthened to be earthquake resistant. The programme
has also been used to increase preparedness and awareness about mitigation for future earthquake risks.
The programme was intensified following the 2001 earthquake in Gujarat in India. Since then, learning
exchanges have been organised between masons in Nepal and Gujarat. Other activities have included:
• Regular evacuation drills and education about earthquakes for schoolchildren;
• University students undertaking safety assessments of schools as part of their training;
• Communities participated in the design of safer schools, thus learning about safer construction;
• An annual activity week culminating in an Earthquake Safety Day that included exhibitions, radio
interviews, rallies and children’s art competitions;
• Provision of training for journalists about the programme and disaster mitigation;
• A manual and curriculum for training courses for masons in earthquake-resistant construction;
• Community members working alongside trained masons in retrofitting or rebuilding of schools and
community buildings.
More recently homeowners have started to hire trained masons to improve the earthquake resistance of
their own houses. And the experience that NSET gained with this programme was subsequently transferred
to Pakistan, where they assisted ERRA with reconstruction after the 2005 earthquake.
See: Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre and USAID (2005), pp. 198-199
Case 3: Women take the lead in safer roof construction to protect against hurricanes in
Jamaica
Jamaica has been severely affected by hurricanes in past decades, particularly by hurricane Gilbert in
1988, Hugo in 1989 and Mitch in 1998. Most of the population was ill-prepared for these disasters. A
lot of the damage to houses was due to roofs that were not securely fixed to walls. A Jamaican NGO, the
Construction Resource for Development Centre (CRDC) has been working to remedy this. CRDC took the
initiative to:
• Produce and show a video and promote discussion about safer roof construction and particularly about
how to strap the roof securely to walls;
• Demonstrate the safe strapping technique on damaged houses of elderly widows to train builders in the
use of the technique;
• Produce and distribute booklets about safer building techniques;
• Discuss the roof strapping technique with the Jamaica Bureau of Standards, which approved it and
specified it as an industry-wide standard;
• Train women in disaster safe construction. These women would in turn train others and they could then
instruct local builders and contractors to use safe construction techniques and monitor their work to
ensure that safe construction was being implemented.
More recently, the project has been extended to train women in vulnerability assessment and mapping to
get an insight into how people are vulnerable to hurricanes more generally and specifically what makes
particular settlements and communities vulnerable and how these vulnerabilities could be addressed.
Donor support has also enabled CRDC to extend its roof retrofitting project to hurricane affected areas in
four other Caribbean countries and to Honduras and Peru. This is an interesting example of south-to-south
technology transfer.
See: UNISDR (2007), pp.27-30.
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