HHCP Nepal — High Himalayan Community Projects Nepal

Post-earthquake update

• Posted on December 12, 2015
• by HHCP Nepal
• in Adopt a school, Earthquake Recovery, Our hospital, School Building and Support
• Comments Off on Post-earthquake update

It is now over 6 ½ months since the initial earthquake in Nepal. The after-shocks have lessened although the impact on the people is still very tangible, with many still very traumatised. Any tremor sends them running outdoors for safety, and still many extremely remote rural Rasuwa children are choosing not to re-attend school as the moment as they fear the consequences of not being at home should another big earthquake eventuate. This is so sad but totally comprehensible…

Rasuwa Nepali families have all re-built their temporary homes and got through the monsoon season relatively unscathed, so this was great news. Luckily this year the monsoon rains were not heavy and the landslide damage was minimal compared to expectations of the earthquake damage done to ground structure beneath the surface. The outcome now is that the ground has another 6-8 months of “settling” before the next wet season.

Trekking around the Rasuwa District is an incredible sight to behold, seeing all the donated corrugated iron roofs gleaming back at you under the sunlight and knowing that many kind donors have made this possible for the rural Nepali’s. High Himalayan Community Projects and the rural Nepali’s can’t begin to express the deep gratitude felt!!

North Pole Boarding School was the sole school to survive the earthquakes with these students luckily being able to return to some sort of normality fairly quickly and attend this school with confidence in the building structure.

Over the monsoon season the communities were busy building temporary school structures at all the remaining school sites ie. Jibajibe High School, Kimarchung School, Ghormu School, Jhyanglang School, Betang School and more.

Plans are starting to morph with the rural communities and HHCP Nepal to start re-building the permanent structures of these schools as the opportunities and funding becomes available.
The prime focus of HHCP Nepal will remain to be the education of the children…

The Nepali Government still hasn’t formalised the Nepal re-building authority, meaning they haven’t yet formalised a plan for the re-building of Nepal with the $4.4 billion funding donated by International Aid. There is Nepali Government “talk” of donating $US2000/family that lost their homes in the earthquakes. Therefore at present all families who lost their homes are in a holding pattern waiting for further updates of this, whilst also being in a holding pattern with the Indian blockade, as this is where the majority of outsourced building materials are sought.

The blockade continues to hold Nepal to ransom with virtually no fuel, no gas and now medical supplies are running out. It is incredible how resilient the Nepali’s can be though, they are surviving, with “black market” fuel and gas now becoming a marketable source as long as you are prepared to pay about 3-5 times normal price for it!! Luckily this doesn’t adversely affect the extremely rural and poor Nepali’s as they don’t use these sources of energy. The hospital situation will remain another story…