People's understanding about the earthquake risk: A case study of core settlements of Kathmandu valley
- Author Ramesh Prasad Singh
- DOI
- Country : India
- Subject : Engineering
Keywords : Awareness, Earthquake, Preparedness, Questionnaire, Risk Perception
Abstract
Kathmandu Valley, the capital of Nepal, is specifically vulnerable to earthquakes. There have since been earthquakes causing severe human and physical loss in 1934, 1980, 1988 and 2011. The city and townscape of Kathmandu Valley is chaotic and city planning does not seem to exist. The recent destructive earthquake which was occurred on 25th April, 2015 has caused thousands of deaths and injuries and extensive damage to the buildings and properties demolishing all the social, political and economic development of the entire country. The destruction was widespread covering residential and government buildings, heritage sites, schools and health posts, rural roads, bridges, water supply systems, agricultural land, trekking routes, hydropower plants and sports facilities. The devastating consequences and uncontrollability of earthquake bring us many difficulties in dealing with it. For this, it is crucial to understand the people’s understanding about the earthquake risk. The earthquake risk has been tried to achieve through stakeholder’s perspectives. In this paper, people’s understanding about the earthquake risk has been analysed to realize how a society or target population perceives its risks and what importance they place on the reduction of specific risks through the interview of 300 respondents in core settlements of Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur Durbar Squares. Through the questionnaire, an investigation was conducted on people’s cognition and response to the earthquake. The survey shows the people’s awareness, preparedness and mitigation towards the earthquake risk is poor and their knowledge about the knowledge of building code and emergency response is limited.
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