A culture of better preparedness has to be developed at the local level
By Mandira Singh Shrestha and Vijay Khadgi
The monsoon rain that fell incessantly from August 11 to 14 inundated Biratnagar, the industrial capital of Nepal. The city’s airport, the second largest in Nepal, remained submerged for over a week. The airport remained closed as the Tarai plains grappled with death and loss. According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, 160 people died, 29 went missing, and thousands were affected by the flood. An evaluation of these numbers raises three important questions: How did the flood become such a big disaster? What level of preparedness did we have? What could we have done better?
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Timely flood preparedness is key to saving lives and property. In the last decade, Nepal has made significant progress in disaster management. The country has strengthened its institutional arrangements for disaster risk reduction and created national multi-stakeholder platforms. Nepal has been an active contributor to the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005–2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters, which emphasizes the implementation of early warning systems (EWS). The country has committed to the Sendai Disaster Risk Reduction Framework 2015–2030, which aims to substantially increase the availability of and access to EWS and disaster risk information and assessments to people by 2030.
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