Some notable disasters in Nepal and their mitigation

Abstract

Nepal is facing different types of disaster such as earthquake, landslide, flood, thunderstorm, GLOF, avalanche, fire, drought, and epidemic. These disasters are found to occur in different parts of the country due to various reasons in different periods. It is said that Nepal Himalaya is seismically very active due to presence of numerous active fault and thrusts, which were formed as a result of the collision between Indian Plate and Eurasian Plate some 40 Million years ago. Nepal has suffered a lot from past earthquakes as evidenced from historical earthquakes bringing a great loss of lives, properties and infrastructures affecting the development pace of the country. Records of historical earthquakes dating back to 1255 A.D. and the earthquake of 1934 both of which are considered as great devastating earthquakes in the past have caused wide spread losses of lives and properties including damages of numerous physical infrastructures. Similarly two moderate earthquakes of July 29, 1980 and 21 August, 1988 hit the country in Far Western Region and Eastern Region triggering many landslides in hilly region causing a death toll of 178 people and 721 people respectively. In the same way, due to rugged mountain topography, its fragile geological nature, and high intensity rainfall during the monsoon, the mountain terrains are vulnerable to landslides and debris flow. Landslides are occurring in every monsoon period causing loss in lots of life and properties. The landslides and debris flows during 1993 was a nightmare that had taken the lives of 1259 people affecting 44 districts and damaging many bridges and dams as well bringing a total loss of more than 47194 Million Rupees. Disaster such as floods, landslides, thunderbolt, fire, hailstorm, windstorm and epidemic brings a huge loss in life and properties every year. Many national and international organizations are working in disaster management to cope with natural disaster and to reduce its impacts. This paper mainly deals with natural disaster related to earthquake, landslides and floods and its mitigation to make people aware of such kind of disaster in future.

Journal of Nepal Geological Society, 2007, Vol. 36 (Sp. Issue) p.23