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Earthquakes don’t kill, but poorly constructed buildings will

The loss of lives and property during the devastating earthquake was amplified due to greed and corruption in Kathmandu's booming housing sector. -RAMESHWOR BOHARA: CIJ

Cij Nepal

June 12, 2015

The loss of lives and property during the devastating earthquake was amplified due to greed and corruption in Kathmandu's booming housing sector.

-RAMESHWOR BOHARA: CIJ

A YouTube video of this college building in Kathmandu being reduced to rubble went viral immediately after the April 25 earthquake. Hundreds of students of Morgan International College would have been killed, had it not been a weekend. Officials at the municipal office told us that the building's faulty engineering design of having an underground water tank may be the reason behind its collapse.

The destructive earthquake of April 25 spared most neighborhoods of Kathmandu Valley, but the ones that were hit illustratehow shabbily buildings are constructed in the capital.

When we compared the approved designs of collapsed buildings, accessed from local municipal and village town office (known locally as VDCs), with the erected structures, it exposed the short sightedness of house owners as well as greed and corruption of the government officials.

Chandra Bahadur Shrestha of Bhojpur was celebrating the sale of his five storeyed house in Milan Chowk Kathmandu with his relatives on April 25 when the earthquake struck. Within seconds the entire building crumbled, killing Shrestha, his wife and five relatives. Others buried under the debris were rescued by the police. approved by staffs at the Kathmandu Metropolitan City Office by forging the original engineering design.

Another seven storey building near Chabahil area killed 30 people when it collapsed on April 25. The building constructed in 1997 was a house to seven families, motorcycle workshop, beauty salon and a church. The owner Nabin Rajbhandari from Dharan had bought the building from Radheshyam Shrestha six years ago.

"I moved in to Kathmandu and bought the house for my sons who are studying here," said Rajbhandari glancing at the debris of his house. Nabin cannot get over the guilt, and kept saying, 'I would never intentionally harm anybody, I bought the house only to make things easier for my family.'

The study of original design reveals, it was only approved for 5 storeys. Instead, a seven storey tower was erected in less than a quarter of the total land area. "There are serious lapses and engineering faults, in the way this house was built on a fragile foundation near the river," says senior structural engineer Rajan Suwal when we showed him the approved house design.

Another neighbourhood that reported highest death toll and physical damage is Gongabu, next to the city buspark. The area is dotted with tall commercial buildings hosting cheap motels and shopping malls targeting passengers coming in and going out of the valley. A nine storey building in this area (see pic below) which housed four hotels and several retail stores crumbled instantly killed seventeen people.

The rubble has still not been cleared and even the police could not tell us how many people may still be buried underneath. The house was built on a poor foundation, and had several engineering and structural faults that led to its collapse.

Most of the buildings in this area were built primarily for commercial use, and the owners added more storeys to the existing structures without taking into consideration the foundation which led to so much loss of lives and property.

Furthermore the houses around several collapsed buildings in Gongabu are now at risk, since its fallen debris has severely damaged them.

Devi Poudel, chief of Gongabu Police Circle says, 25 houses in the area which housed hotels have been completely damaged, and several bodies were retrieved from each building. "People still put in requests for their missing relatives under the debris of these buildings, but we have no estimate about how many people are buried there," says Poudel.

Just few kilometeres east of Gongabu is the enormous Park View Horizon Apartments, which lies in Tokha municipality. This building which was touted as earthquake resistant by Barun Developers and sold at exorbitant prices, now has huge vertical cracks.

Seventy five families were living in the complex at the time, although only one resident was killed when a loose brick struck her. The apartment has been given a red sticker by the department of urban development and declared unsafe for living.

The developers only had permit to build 11 storeys in the building, but were later given revised permit to build 18 storey structures.

With rising labour costs and land prices, there has been a surge in the popularity of high-rise apartment buildings in Kathmandu, in recent years. But the April 25 quake exposed the deeply flawed structural designs and shoddy ways in which such high-rise structures are erected.

The 18 storey Cityscape apartment developed by CG Groups in Hattiban and Civil Apartments in Dhapakhel have also been severely damaged by the earthquake. Although these housing projects were yet to receive completion certificate from the local urban development authorities, people were already living here.

Interestingly, most of these apartments were built in village towns, also known locally as VDCs. They are run by handful of staffs and have weaker building codes and monitoring mechanism compared to municipal areas.

Under the revised government decision, most of these suburban towns have been declared a municipal area, and a revised national housing policy was introduced.

Janakraj Joshi, former secretary of Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport admits, "Not all municipalities have technical capacity to evaluate and approve complex engineering designs. So, the VDCs cannot possibly have resources to develop such capacity. The builders exploited this loophole to get their project approved without fulfilling necessary procedures."

Sources at the ministry have revealed, the builders often used political influence to get their approval from local bodies. " When I took a stand against such practice, i was punished," says a former government secretary who was transferred from the office when he refused to bow down to political pressure.

Despite enforcing a strict building codes, including a two year old earthquake resistant building codes, several newly constructed buildings came crashing down during the quake, which shows laws alone aren't sufficient. "We need a competent body to oversee implementation of these codes," says Ram Prasad Poudel, Senior Officer at development division of Kathmandu Metropolitan City office. He admits, KMC's own unofficial studies have revealed, 80 per cent houses in Kathmandu are built without following the approved building design.

"This may be just the tip of an iceberg, we still need to look into the quality of materials used to build these houses," adds Poudel.

While many houses collapsed due to engineering faults, there were buildings like that of Upendra Adhikari from Gongabu area which was leased out to a school, and wasn't spared despite going through rigorous structural analysis and following standard building codes.

Experts say such houses in Gongabu and Shova Bhagwati area couldn't withstand the tremors because they were built on soft soil around river banks. These areas became densely populated after thousands of people thronged to Kathmandu during the conflict.

"People bring in priests to make sure their houses are auspicious but hardly bother to get the soil quality tested with engineers before constructing houses. Such mistakes have proven to be fatal", explained senior structural engineer Rajan Suwal.

Following the massive loss of lives due to faulty structures, the government issued a circular on 19 May to take action against the guilty officials. But given the weak transitional law and order situation as well as politically sheltered impunity, people are skeptical about any action.

But engineers like Suwal warn, if the culprits whose negligence caused loss of hundreds of lives and properties worth billions aren't held accountable now, there will be no deterrence against such malpractices in future."