Response of Armed Police Force on Gorkha Earthquake 2015

Abstract

Disasters are with us since the beginning of human civilization. But the impact of the disaster is increased in recent years. People have to suffer due to disaster and they need emergency support to sustain in disaster situation. But many times, the situation is overwhelmed and people can’t run their daily live themselves. So the state has to take the responsibility of their people and has to provide humanitarian assistance.Nepal is also facing various types of disaster. Since, Nepal lies on active seismic zone, it is facing earthquake event frequently. Recently, Nepal faced an earthquake event and many people happened to lose their lives. Since, the earthquake disaster is reoccurring event in Nepal, it is must to be prepared and state has to take the initiation towards the preparedness and emergency management. Armed Police Force (APF) isone of the agencies in Nepal which works during the disaster. So, that this research has explored the status of preparedness aspects of APF for overall disaster. It has also explored the response of APF during earthquake 2015 and shortcomings of the activities. Explorative research design was used to undertake the research and mixed approach both quantitative and qualitative data were collected from the primary and secondary data sources. Respondents were chosen from the planners of APF, rescuers of earthquake event response and the survivors of the earthquake 2015. It’s a good initiation that APF has started developing human power of disaster response. But the pace of preparedness to the response by developing human power and making well equipped is quite slow. It was a praiseworthy work that APF did during the earthquake disaster. APF was mainly focused on search and rescue operation and did wonderful job on saving the lives of people. Lack of human power,equipment, modern gadgets, sound coordination, communication, decision making and implementing the planning were the main lacking points during the response.