Nepal: what happened when a disaster preparedness expert was caught in an earthquake

In this Generation Anthropocene podcast 'Research to Reality: Eyewitness to the 2015 Nepal Earthquake', Stanford geologist Anne Sanquini gives her first-hand account of April's disaster in Nepal.

On April 25, Sanquini was getting ready to screen an educational film about earthquake preparedness with her team in Kathmandu, Nepal.

"I can hear glass crashing. There's a horrible groaning, rattling, extremely loud," she said. "And I really thought we'd go into freefall at any minute, that the floor would just give way below us."

The magnitude-7.8 earthquake that struck Nepal that day devastated the city and its surroundings, toppling centuries-old cultural sites and claiming more than 9,000 lives. For Sanquini, who had spent years studying earthquake risk in the region, this was the major quake she had long dreaded. One of the area's fastest growing cities, Kathmandu sits along the border of two colliding continental plates, a zone where earthquakes are relatively common. But in her research, Sanquini has found that most of the urban structures in the capital are made of bricks and stone held together with mud, making them prone to collapse during a seismic event.

Luckily, there is a small success story to come out of the tragedy. Listen to the full episode above to hear more about Sanquini's team in Nepal and their work retrofitting schools in Kathmandu.