ABSTRACT
The devastation of the 1988 M6.6 Udaypur earthquake was the start of efforts towards urban resilience in Nepal. In 1994, a unique national building code was created. The National Society for Earthquake Technology – Nepal (NSET), established in 1994, started implementing urban resilience programs in collaboration with municipalities. The initial years were difficult – in 2012, the unofficial rate of formal compliance with the national building code in Nepal was a meagre 21 per cent (NSET 2016a). By 2017, in 30 cities supported by NSET the rate of compliance skyrocketed to 62 per cent (NSET 2016a). The elements of success for implementing the building code in cities included a combination of working with the national government, slowly guiding the local authorities to understanding how to implement the National Building Code, and education and awareness raising amongst stakeholders, including homeowners, masons, and engineers.
There are three lessons learnt from 20 years of working to increase seismic resilience in Nepal. Firstly, raising awareness at all levels, building capacity of those responsible for design, construction and supervision of the construction process, and creation of enabling municipal policies, are the foundation of urban seismic resilience in Nepal. Secondly, it is now acknowledged that institutionalization of building code implementation is a long-term undertaking in Nepal and it includes engagement of multitude stakeholders. Lastly, the Gorkha earthquake of 2015 also showed that building earthquake-resilient structures saves lives and people’s financial investments. The experience of the past two decades have made Nepal confident about making cities resilient in the future.
