SOUTH ASIA SUFFERS MORE DURING QUAKES DUE TO

POOR
INFRASTRUCTURE
Could the earthquake in Nepal have been predicted?
Kathmandu is built
on an old lake bed that runs across the entire Valley.
Seismic waves would transform the sediment into
a liquid-like substance, which would cause intense
shaking by surface waves.

As continental plates collide, the rocks are

shortened by folding and thrusting. When the rocks
break along a fault, earthquakes release the builtup
stress. During large earthquakes, the rocks can
move 5 or even 10 meters instantly. The Himalayas
were formed by a series of earthquakes such as
these.
Please explain the geological blueprint of this
earthquake
The Indian Plate collided with Asia about 50
million years ago, closing the Tethys Ocean that
lay between. India has since continued to push
north into Asia, under-thrusting the Himalayas and
pushing the mountains up. The Nepal earthquake
is the latest in a series of such events that are caused
by thrust faulting on the interface between the
down-going Indian plate and the rising Himalayas.
The active thrust fault dips about 5-10 degrees to the north of the Himalayan front.
The earthquake
depth, about 15 km beneath the Gorkha region,
was on this rupture. The earthquake ruptured about
120 km length of the fault from the Gorkha region
eastward. The maximum amount of slip along the
fault that ruptured may have been 4-5 meters but
the fault did not break to the surface.
The region is still experiencing tremors
Big earthquakes will have many aftershocks;
some of extremely large magnitude, even 6, can be
expected. Small aftershocks are likely to continue
for weeks, months, even a year afterwards, as the
plates readjust. It is possible that about 5 meters of
slip may have resulted at 15 km depth on this
earthquake. The fault does not seem to have
ruptured the surface, so the strain may still be
greater at depth. There is potential for an increased

number of smaller earthquakes in the region to the

south of Pokhara and Kathmandu, where the fault
rises towards the surface and also to the west of
the epicentre from Gorkha to Pokhara along the
axis of the Himalayas.

Making buildings earthquake-safe

The extent of damage to buildings depends not only on the magnitude of the earthquake, but also on
the type of construction practice followed in a particular region or country. For example, an
earthquake in Tokyo or Los Angeles may result in damage of only a few buildings because strict
construction regulations are adopted. But a similar earthquake may be catastrophic in Mumbai or
Delhi, in terms of buildings damaged and lives lost, because the building design and construction
practices are not adequately regulated.

When an earthquake strikes, the ground shakes violently, depending on several factors like
the magnitude, the depth of the focus and the nature of soil. In some rare cases involving
sandy soils in the presence of ground water, the soil can suddenly behave like
quicksandcausing buildings to sink or tilt and collapse. In such regions, buildings should be
either supported on pile foundations resting on hard strata or should be constructed after
suitable ground improvement measures are undertaken.
In hilly terrains (as in the Himalayan regions), landslides are likely to be triggered, bringing
down buildings located on the unstable slopes. Slope stabilising measures can help to some
extent to arrest the damage.
Even if the soil and foundations in a structure are safe, collapse of a building can occur if it
does not have adequate strength to resist the horizontal forces that are generated during an
earthquake. Also, there should be adequate ductility, which is the ability of the structure to
deform without collapsing during the earthquake. For this, it is important to ensure that the
connections at the various interfaces of building components remain intact during the
shaking.
The seismic forces generated increase with the mass and the height of the building.
Therefore, it is desirable to adopt light-weight materials and low-rise structures in highly
earthquake-prone regions, unless they are properly designed, detailed and constructed,
based on the prevailing standards.
There are recommendations available in our national codes on providing seismic-resistant
features in such buildings such as providing small reinforced concrete bands in the walls at
the plinth, lintel (above the windows and doors) and roof levels, and various other measures
to tie the components of the building together. These measures ensure that integrity is
preserved during ground shaking. The concrete bands should be horizontally continuous
throughout the walls to help in tying the components of the building together. It is also
important to ensure that the materials used (such as brick and mortar) as well as
construction practices, should be of good quality.
Retrofitting old buildings that do not have such concrete bands is also possible. Ferrocement
bands and embedded metal strips that run across the walls (horizontally and vertically) can
preserve the integrity of the buildings to a large extent.
Buildings on stilts need to be specially designed. Columns in the stilts should be stronger and
stiffer than those in the rest of the building to take the additional stress introduced by the
stilt construction.

Himalayas: next major quake may be west of the recent

one
Thrust faulting
The April 25, 2015 quake was caused by thrust faulting on or near the main frontal thrust
where the Indian plate is pushed under the Eurasian plate. According to the U.S. Geological
Survey, from the epicentre of the earthquake, nearly 80 km to the northwest of the Nepalese
capital of Kathmandu, the India plate is converging with the Eurasian plate at a rate of 4.5-5 cm
per year.
Amplification of waves
Nepal is situated on an ancient lakebed and hence the soil at Kathmandu valley is soft and liquefies
easily. Unlike a rocky terrain where the seismic waves travelling with great velocity can have very
good transmission, a terrain with sediments can amplify the seismic waves, thereby amplifying the
ground motion.
A continental-continental plate collision will necessarily produce shallow-focus earthquakes (less
than 70 km) as continental plates are less dense than oceanic plates and both the plates have the
same density. However, when two ocean plates collide, both the plates will go down to form a trench,
like in the case of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean.
Both the ocean plates will go down because of the role of gravity, Dr. Chadha said. In the case of
two colliding continental plates, gravity is not that intense.
In the case of a continental plate colliding with an oceanic plate, the oceanic plate subducts under the
continental plate as it is heavier than the continental plate. In general, the focus of most of the
earthquakes in subduction zones is intermediate (70-300 km) to deep (300-600 km).

Collectives help rural women Lean In

In the world of microfinance, womens collectives have acquired a great
deal of prominence globally and are known by various names such as Self
Help Groups (SHGs), Joint Liability Groups (JLG), or Village Saving and
Loan Associations (VSLA). There is a strongly held belief that the formation
of these groups has transformed the lives of women, improving their
financial status due to the direct links between themicrocredit, obtained
through the group, and the livelihood activities financed by this credit.
Power of together

So then, why collectivise? The real and sustained benefit of womens

collectives and their impact could instead lie in the improvement in the status
of women that they could catalyse. The principal benefit of the association
with the microcredit movement may simply have been to provide an
acceptable, even if high cost, raison dtre and compulsion for these women to
form collectives and meet regularly. This phenomenon of regular meetings
appears to be an important enabling force which gives the woman courage to
lean in, in multiple household and community settings.
Researchers find that womans groups, practising participatory learning and
action in settings as varied as Bangladesh, India, Malawi, and Nepal, showed
a 49 per cent reduction in maternal mortality and a 33 per cent reduction in
neonatal mortality. Yet another randomised control trial found that, after just
two years of an intervention, which combined a group-based microfinance
programme with participatory training on understanding HIV infection,
gender norms, domestic violence, and sexuality, the risk of past-year physical
or sexual violence by an intimate partner was reduced by more than half.
Women who had gone through the programme were able to challenge the
acceptability of violence, expect and receive better treatment from partners,
leave abusive relationships, and raise public awareness about intimate partner
violence.
An examination of the factors that generate this impact finds that women do
not come with a ready-made stock of social capital but instead build it through
the process of regular group meetings and it is this social capital that directly
results in their change of status, both within the home and community. A field
experiment in urban India found that groups in which women met more often
and therefore had greater social interaction, showed persistent improvements
in informal risk-sharing and reductions in default relative to groups that met
less frequently. Research suggests that groups tend to generate social capital
through the focussed interactions that occur in encounters, i.e., group
meetings, which have a number of features, including: (i) a single focus of
attention; (ii) intense and open discussions among group members; (iii) the
huddle of the group meeting around the group leader with frequent eye
contact; (iv) peer monitoring; and (v) the rituals of song and dress that
surround the group meetings, all of which produce a strong feeling of

solidarity and corresponding flow of emotions. This is a very different

understanding of social capital and how it is generated among women and
suggests why the manner in which groups actually operate is far more
important than the original purpose for which they were formed or even
perhaps the manner in which they are created.
This aspect of collectives and groups merits greater attention and
understanding in our quest to find robust pathways for empowerment of
women.