
On Saturday, 25 April 2015 at 11:56 NST, a severe earthquake (7.8 magnitude) hit Nepal followed by a second earthquake ( 6.3 magnitude) on May 12. More than 9000 people were killed and 16.800 were injured, almost 3.5 million people were left homeless and "600,000 structures were either damaged or destroyed" (Rafferty, 2017).The Tribhuvan International Airport was closed after the earthquake, the runway was damaged and most of the airport workers were killed or had to deal with the earthquake consequences. Several of the churches, temples, UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Dharahara tower, which was built in 1832, and many schools have been collapsed. 14 hydropower projects out of 23 operative projects have been damaged. Diseases, starving children and lack of drinking water can be seen all around the country, many girls and women have been sold to other countries by human traffickers after the earthquake. As IHS Global Insights stated the expected cost for rebuilding homes, roads and bridges could run up to $5 billion, where the overall economic damage is estimated to be at about $10 billion, and property loss equivalent to USD 3.5 billion (Amnesty International, 2015; World Economic Forum, 2015).
Map1. Nepal Earthquake (Rafferty, 2017).
Figure1. Nepal aftershock damage (Rafferty, 2017).
After the earthquake the government of Nepal (GoN) established the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) to guarantee improved and safer resistant residence and buildings for the public. The authority focuses on the reconstruction and resettlement efforts using the support of various international donors. Local government ministries and agencies, national development partners, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), civil society organizations (CSOs), and recovery stakeholders have to identify the recovery and reconstruction priorities and the implementation challenges as follows:
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Provide and distribute funding to reconstruct houses and buildings.
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Determine the environmental effect.
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Land acquisition and land registration operations
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New reconstruction guideline and framework
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Working and communicate with non-governmental organizations
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Public and volunteers procurement.
The United Nations, International NGOs and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies immediately prepared resources and reprogrammed activities. The Government of India created humanitarian missions to aid the public. The United Kingdom, China Israel, UNICEF, and the United States have donated different aid to the Nepali government. After the Nepal earthquake; different actors played huge role at the respond and recovery stage. Their participation was to collect, provide, and use spatial data; their focus was to generate crowdsourced data and putting it together with open government data for a better and faster recovery. These actors are:
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“Kathmandu Living Labs(KLL)
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Young Innovations Ltd
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Local Interventions Group
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Open Nepal
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Code for Nepal" (Verhulst et al., 2017)
for the Nepal earthquake recovery stage watch, on the road to recovery https://youtu.be/hnc6hvwyv40
Directly after the earthquakes, KLL began to build a detailed map of affected areas using their pre-earthquake mapping work. KLL used social media images to map the damaged areas on foot, these maps have been used by national and international organizations such as Red Cross and UN to organize and plan the resources. Moreover volunteers used the post-earthquake satellite images to update the KLL maps. KLL develop a website (QuakeMap.Org) that can help people in reporting their needs to the emergency management organizations. Open Nepal and Young Innovations launched a centralized portal (Earthquake Response Transparency Portal) that can project and track national and international aids using different data such as the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Financial Tracking Service (FTS) data, national and international media data, and government and non-government data. All these data has been cleaned and standardized. LIG and Nepal government used different data and information from open governance, crowdsourcing, smarter city solutions and Google to create GIS maps to locate the rebuilding and reconstruction efforts and show human trafficking hotspots and routes. The Humanitarian Data Exchange HDX team set up Housing Recovery and Reconstruction (HRRP 4W) tool to show where, what when, and to whom planned and operating projects are going to.
Map2. Nepal earthquake, GIS Use in Public Health & Healthcare (Nepal earthquake, GIS Use in Public Health & Healthcare, 2017)
Journalists and media played a big role during the recovery stage, they used open source data and the Earthquake Response Transparency Portal to geospatially reports the aids and the distributions. Moreover the media published different surveys of the reconstruction work, and provide a precise viewpoint of the successfully used aids and their distribution. But the media often failed to show the difference between initiates, promises and actual payments or funds, so the CSOs and NGOs used the portal to investigate aids resources and distribution to show areas for potential rebuilding projects and plan the government contributions on the reconstructing process. The Nepal government including the National Planning Commission and the Prime Minister of Nepal played an important role in the success of the Nepali recovery stage by promotes transparency and allow the use of open data projects, to show where rehabilitation funds being used and allocated to facilitate and ensure a fast and healthy earthquake recovery.Many of the online volunteers did not have any experience with the spatial data and the format that has been used inside the portal, which badly affect and delay the data collection and analysis stage.
Map3. Describes damaged and destroyed structures during Nepal earthquake 2015. The data has been collected and interrupted by NGA using satellite images. (The created analytical map has been created and developed by Group 2, using the provided datasets at Lesson8 group assignment page)
References:
Amnesty International, 2015. Nepal Earthquake Recovery Must Safeguard Human Right. Amnesty International Limited. United Kingdom, London.
Nepal earthquake, GIS Use in Public Health & Healthcare. (2017). [image] Available at: https://healthmap.wordpress.com/2015/05/22/nepal-relief-map-immappler-comnepalrelief/ [Accessed 10 Oct. 2017].
Rafferty, J. (2017). Nepal earthquake of 2015 | Magnitude, Death Toll, Aftermath, & Facts. [online] Encyclopedia Britannica. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nepal-earthquake-of-2015 [Accessed 8 Oct. 2017].
Verhulst, S., Young, A., Bista, S. and McMurren, J. (2017). OPEN DATA FOR DEVELOPING ECONOMIES CASE STUDIES. [online] www.odimpact.org. Available at: http://odimpact.org/files/case-nepal.pdf [Accessed 9 Oct. 2017].