Impact of Earthquake - 2015 on vulnerable populations in Nepal

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to unravel the impact of earthquakes on vulnerable populations. The impact of the quake is literally measured in different perspectives- social, physical, economic, demographic, and esthetic; however, this study covers to impinging of an earthquake on vulnerable groups or populations from socio-demographic and cultural perspectives. Hazards, vulnerability, and risk are all uniquely intertwined in the development of death and destruction from disasters. Almost 82 years back, the earthquake in April 2015 triggered the disaster with its epicenter at Barpak; Gorkha situated about 80 kilometers to the North- West from Kathmandu. The moment magnitude of 7.8 MW, with a depth of about 10-15 kilometers down to earth created waves that lasted for almost 50 seconds recorded, followed by numerous aftershocks that hit many lives and physical amenities very severely. Nepal Government has produced a report on Post Disaster Need Assessment (PDNA) in almost two and half months of the aftermath of the earthquake measured death tolled 8,790 casualties and 22,300 injuries along with lives affected about eight million. Of 75 districts, thirty-one districts were affected, out of which 14 districts declared: 7 mountain districts as ‘severely hit,’ and 7 hill districts including Kathmandu Valley as ‘crisis-hit,’ to prioritize rescue and relief operations. The report also says that the death toll of young people could have been much higher considering that nearly 7,000 schools were completely or significantly damaged. But fortunately, the day was Saturday- all schools both private and public were closed for a weakly official holiday in Nepal. Besides children, the elderly, single women-headed households, and all populations were at a high risk of exposure to the disaster victims. Natural hazard including earthquake does not go along with the line of age, gender, social, cultural, or ethnic settlements; rather it hits disproportionately. But the impact on the affected population lasts for an extended period and varies with a spectrum of vulnerable populations to affluent and accessible populations.

This study uses two data sets- ‘Nepal Earthquake, 2015: A Socio-demographic Impact Study: With reference to 14 most affected districts,’ which was carried out by the Central Department of Population Studies in 2015, and a study on, ‘Community Resilience,’ which was conducted by Central Department of Anthropology (CDA) in 2020. Quantitative data sources are triangulated with qualitative information collected during both survey research. This study has employed descriptive data analysis along with ꭓ2 – test and Multiple Linear Regression Analysis. Study findings show that there is a clear discrepancy between socio-economically, culturally, and demographically between dominant populations and vulnerable groups. The findings apparently show the impact with the spectrum where the head of households of severely hit districts, rural families, female-headed households, agricultural occupation, no education or at least primary, Christians in religious, and Dalit (hill) and other hill Janajati groups were very badly hit while head of the households of Kathmandu Valley districts, urban families, male-headed households, salaried wageworkers, head of the households with tertiary education, Hindu religion, and Brahmin and Newar ethnic groups are less likely to be impacted. However, the community resilience survey shows that the recovery revealed just the reverse. Descriptive analysis clearly shows the relationship that recovery is taking place even in vulnerable populations, but whether it statistically significant or not multivariate linear regression is applied. The result shows the positive relationship that the recovery is well explained by the different categories of explaining variables. Multivariate linear regression analysis is adopted to show the relationship between dependent and independent variables. Vulnerable populations in general and Dalit communities, in particular, were found to be brought back better than their counterpart who were less likely to be impacted by the earthquake. In the context of Nepal, an own house building is the hallmark indicator of household loss in the disaster, and a gain after 5 years of individual, as well as state support, satisfactorily can be measured as the best indicator of recovery. In the study, a dependent variable such as the opinion of households asked that satisfied with the recovery measures or building back the house building. Cross-variate analysis showed pretty good. However Multivariate linear regression analysis also indicated a significant relationship between the dependent variable with the Earthquake Affected Domains, Gender, Education, Religion, and Caste/ ethnicity. The novel findings of the study are that the vulnerable groups- hill Dalit and Janajati got better brought back after 5 years in recovery than the other groups. The plausible reason is that the disparity between the vulnerable groups and their counterparts was huge before the disaster. The disaster hit disproportionately, but the former experienced worse than the latter. Under the reconstruction measure, both the vulnerable groups and their counterparts found recovery more or less the same yield better to the former. In other words, the gap was larger before the quake, disaster hit equally, and the reconstruction measures adopted brought a small gap between vulnerable groups and their counterparts. By caste\ ethnic groups, other hill-ethnic minor groups account for 91 percent completely lost their house. Similarly, households with Christianity in religious faith also account for 92.5 percent; the highest number of houses\huts damaged which is slightly greater than hill ethnic minor groups. As far as the recovery is concerned, the highest proportion of Rai ethnic groups (56.5%) reported that they were fully satisfied followed by Chepang (53.3%). Whereas Majhi reported the least percentage (6.1%) fully satisfied.