The school is about to provide twice monthly earthquake drills and training for the 300 students aged 4 to 16 following three days of training for the 19 school staff provided by ADB last month.

There is now the outline of an emergency evacuation plan on the wall of the staff canteen indicating that the children would evacuate the classrooms for the open ground of the nearby football field.

Rabina Thapa (15) was just 11 and at home minding her younger brother and sister when the earthquake struck. Thanks to teaching at the Divine Light private school she knew what to do and once the worst tremors subsided, she took her siblings out onto open ground.

She now attends the Mahalxmi school and says: “I think we should give some knowledge to the children. It’s good that we are going to start earthquake drills here.”

Mr. Tamang’s school is a well-run public school providing free education. We also visited a private school the Himalayan International Academy in Dhulikhel, a town to the east of the Kathmandu Valley. We arrived during the morning assembly as the children did calisthenics and sang the national anthem, a good moment in the day to say a few words about earthquake risk?

The school buildings survived the earthquake.  A spokesman said earthquakes were covered in science classes but there was no programme in place to provide drills and training to the children in the event of another major earthquake but following our visit they are now considering it.

In a reminder to every one of the risk, there were three strong tremors felt in the Kathmandu Valley the day before the 4th anniversary of the Gorkha earthquake.

Date:

30 Apr 2019

Sources:

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction - Regional Office for Asia and Pacific (UNDRR AP)

Themes:

Civil Society/NGOs, Advocacy & Media

Hazards:

Earthquake

Countries:

Nepal

Regions:

Asia