Nepal Gorkha Earthquake

• The Gorkha Earthquake was on the 25th of April in 2015 at 11.26 am.
• A total of 19,009 were injured; 8,632 were killed.
• Landslide killed 250 people in the village of Ghodalabela.
• Avalanche at Mount Everest killed 11 people.
• Over 160 deaths in other countries, mainly India.
• 3.5 million was left homeless with 2.8 million displaced. Many of which were migrants from remote areas of Nepal, who moved away Kathmandu after the earthquake.
• The damage totalled USD$10 billion.
• The region is in the countryside near the Himalayas, and is known for the farming communities.
• It was a 7.6 earthquake, with two large aftershocks measuring 6.6 and 6.7.
• Epicentre was 90km northeast of Kathmandu and occurred at a depth of 15km.
• Many landslides caused by the earthquake.
• Kathmandu had a population of around 1,179,000 people.
• Gorkha district has a population of around 271,000 people.
• 193 people per square km of land area in Kathmandu.
• GDP was USD$21.195 billion, GDP per capita was USD$882.31
• HDI was 0.558 in 2015.
• There were landslides and rocks falls.
• Tourist numbers declined.
• Harvests were lost or disregarded.
• It is a convergent plate boundary; two continental plates converging.
• Geological structure of Nepal increases the seismic risk.
• Depending on the water content of the soil at the time liquefaction can be a major hazard.
• When seismic waves pass through this material, they are amplified causing structures to swing violently.
• Pre-historic lakes filled many of the valleys and have hundreds of metres of relatively soft sediment.
• Situated in the middle of the collision zone where the Indo-Australian plate meets the Eurasian plate; there was a sling along the main frontal thrust fault in the collision zone.
• Hazards generated were earthquakes, landslides and avalanched caused.
• 473,000 houses were either destroyed or badly damaged (social)
• Several culturally important sites were damaged by the earthquake including the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Bhaktapur. The nine-storey Dharahara Tower one of the oldest Buddhist moments in the Himalayas was also destroyed (social)
• People chose to sleep outside in temperatures due to the risk of aftershocks causing damaged buildings to collapse (social)
• electricity and water supplies, along with communications were affected (social)
• 1.4 million people needed support with access to water, food and shelter in the days and weeks after the earthquake (social)
• hospitals were overwhelmed (social)
• 250 people were missing in the Lantang region due to the avalanche (social)
• 8,800 fatales from the Gorkha earthquake, 22,000 (social)
• Approximately 1 million people required food assistance (social)
• increase in trafficking women and girls from the poorest families who were homeless to South Asian brothels (social)
• Tibeto-Burman were hit the hardest as they tended to live on the higher slopes in the Himalayas, severely affected by landslides and were also difficult to access for relief aid (social)
• Single women were also disadvantaged and struggled to obtain emergency food and medical aid; most aid was controlled by men and women were often discriminated against (social)
• 2.8 million people displaced many were migrants who moved out of the area from earthquake (social)
• economic losses were estimated to be between 9% to 50% of the GDP by the USA Geological Survey (economic)