The magnitude-7.8 Turkey-Syria quake has triggered a humanitarian disaster, with around 16,000 people already killed, thousands missing, a huge population without supplies and  many people awaiting rescue under the rubble. Against this backdrop, experts say, Nepal, an earthquake-prone country, should learn lessons from the 7.8 tremor and step up disaster preparedness. The quake on the far-off shores of Turkey and Syria has brought back memories from the 2015 Great Gorkha Earthquake (magnitude-7.6), which left more than 600,000 houses destroyed and nearly 9,000 people dead. Jolts of lesser magnitudes have followed the Gorkha quake, including the recent ones in the Sudurpaschim Province. Despite these rude shocks, not much has changed in Nepal in terms of disaster preparedness, point experts.

Lack of open spaces, a crowded outcrop of high-rises and a large population in core city areas pose a huge threat to lives and properties.

Learning lessons from the past, Nepal should shore up disaster preparedness, experts say, warning that casualties could rise in Nepal in the event of a massive quake. “The Turkey-Syria earthquake and the 2015 Gorkha earthquake have shown that we need trained rescue workers, cutters and equipment to break the building chunks to rescue people caught under the rubble,” says Anil Pokhrel, chief executive at the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority. Increase in the number of concrete buildings should also be a cause for concern as the collapse of such structures can cause increased losses of lives and properties, per experts. They stress that the country needs radars to locate people under the debris and trained human resources for rescue operations. “We lack trained human resources and equipment. We need to address this shortfall by producing trained human resources and adding equipment needed for search and rescue across the country,” says Pokhrel. The government should invest in study to assess the safety status of schools, health centers and government buildings. “These structures should be categorized on the basis of their safety status.” “The government should invest in research to find out why many buildings did not collapse in the 2015 earthquake. Policies on construction of homes should be revised on time,” observes Amod Mani Dixit, chair at National Society for Earthquake Technology-Nepal (NSET). Other expert prescriptions include the construction of earthquake-resistant buildings and shoring up of disaster preparedness at local levels, apart from management of safe places for the rehabilitation of rescued people. “This is a wake-up call for all Nepalis. We have forgotten the 2015 earthquake altogether. Building construction codes are not followed and we have no knowledge about technologies that can minimize the impact of a quake. We are ill-prepared to deal with natural disasters,” says Dixit.