Moving mountains
How communities are picking up the pieces after the twin earthquakes that devastated Nepal in 2015.
After twin earthquakes devastated Nepal in 2015, the country is picking up the pieces, but vulnerable groups and isolated communities still face food insecurity.
On 25 April and 12 May 2015, two earthquakes of devastating magnitude struck Nepal, taking the lives of nearly 9,000 people, injuring 22,500 and affecting the livelihoods of 8 million. In a matter of minutes, people lost loved ones, homes and simple subsistence essentials like seeds, crops and tools.
Hospitals overflowed, tents replaced homes, and Nepal — already home to 5 million undernourished people — suddenly faced a pressing new problem of how to feed millions of survivors. The Government declared a state of emergency and requested humanitarian assistance from the international community.
“The earthquake cracked fields and the monsoon washed away what was left.”
Sanchi Maya Thami was one of many to have lost her home in the quakes and the mid-year monsoon season that followed, along with the ability to provide food for her family. “Two earthquakes and incessant monsoon rains took everything away from us,” she said. “The earthquake cracked fields and the monsoon washed away what was left.” A pile of rubble was all that remained of the place where she and her husband raised five children. And buried under it: food reserves, utensils and most of her possessions.
A humanitarian mission on unforgiving terrain
Within six weeks of the first earthquake, the World Food Programme had reached 2 million people, distributing rice and high energy biscuits to meet survivors’ urgent food needs.
Nepal’s mountainous terrain — home to eight of the world’s ten highest peaks — proved to be a double-edged sword: the dramatic landscape that draws trekkers from across the world presented a great logistical challenge to WFP in its efforts to get food to affected populations.
With many survivors in isolated villages in mountainous regions, or cut off by landslides, WFP set up an immense logistics operation tailored to the Nepalese landscape. Its Remote Access Operation employed trucks, helicopters, tractors and teams of mountaineers, as well as 25,000 porters and mules to navigate the steep trails and reach survivors at high altitudes.
As well as delivering life-saving supplies to isolated villages, the operation has also provided employment in areas badly affected by a slump in tourism.
Sushila Kami worked as a porter near the village of Bigu, in Dolokha district, where the unstable terrain can be dangerous. She, along with a network of other porters across several districts, worked to clear debris, rehabilitate trekking and community trails, and deliver vital emergency supplies.
“Now that I have food, I can spend the money on my children’s exam fees and notebooks for school.”
When asked how she will spend the money earned from her portering, Sushila said, “Now that I have food, I can spend the money on my children’s exam fees and notebooks for school.”
So far Sushila and her colleagues have contributed to the rehabilitation of 495 kilometres of trails, opening up access to more than 120,000 people living in remote mountainous terrain.
A mountain is climbed one step at a time
In the months that followed the quakes, as Nepal began its recovery and disappeared from the headlines, some of WFP’s work was just beginning.
WFP honed its food assistance efforts, continuing to provide food and introducing cash support. Cash was provided to food-insecure people in areas where markets were already beginning to recover, giving people a choice of what food to eat and pumping money into the local economy.
With an already nutritionally compromised population, WFP focused on the most vulnerable in its nutrition interventions. It provided blanket supplementary feeding support, with specialized nutritious food, to more than 11,000 children under 2, and assistance to pregnant women and nursing mothers.
WFP continued to provide assistance to 450,000 people, in exchange for work to create community assets. People affected by the disaster received cash or food, in exchange for labour on projects to rebuild community infrastructure damaged by the earthquake.
“With the money provided by WFP, my family has bought food and iron sheets”
Bharat Rumba, an energetic 33 year old living in the small village of Jhirghari, which was badly affected by the first earthquake, was among them. “With the money provided by WFP, my family has bought food and iron sheets. I added materials I could salvage from my collapsed house to build a storage place for my potatoes. This cash has been a great help for everyone in the community.”
Communities have worked to repair 1,714 km of mountain trails, fix irrigation systems on 546 hectares of agricultural land, rebuild storage facilities, stabilize slopes and rehabilitate damaged community assets such as water taps and public latrines.
A new year brings new beginnings
Twelve months later, the food security situation in Nepal had improved, with significantly fewer people in need of immediate assistance.
Despite this overall good news, pockets of food insecurity still persist, often related to caste, gender and elevation. Inadequate food consumption was found in Dalit families and female-headed households, as well as communities living at high altitudes.
Through a three-year recovery programme, WFP will focus on emergency-preparedness measures to better enable the country to withstand and respond to future disasters. It will continue to support immediate food needs, and help communities to restore their livelihoods in the districts where food insecurity is highest and community infrastructure is most damaged.
April marks the start of the New Year in Nepal, an opportunity to close a chapter on the previous 12 months and start the year with renewed resolve to address the long-term goal of reconstruction.
“As we look to the year behind us, one in which Nepal was confronted with unimaginable hardship and difficulties, I believe that we have much to be proud of,” said Pippa Bradford, WFP Representative and Country Director in Nepal. “However, New Years are also a time for reflection and learning, both about the work that remains undone, and the challenges that lie ahead.”
“We have been both heartened and humbled by the efforts of the Nepalese people to rebound and respond to the effects of the earthquake.”
“We have been both heartened and humbled by the efforts of the Nepalese people to rebound and respond to the effects of the earthquake,” she continued. “Now, as we look to the long-term recovery of the country, it will be the Nepalese people who will once again be the cornerstone of efforts to build back better. Their involvement and ownership of rehabilitation efforts will be critical to improved livelihoods, greater self-sustainability and better resilience moving forward.”
Thank you to those who made it possible
WFP would like to express its gratitude to its donors for their generous and timely contributions to WFP’s Nepal earthquake response. Our thanks goes to (in alphabetical order): Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, European Union, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Liechtenstein, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, UN CERF, UK, USA, WFP’s multilateral and private/individual donors.
Article first published 22 April, 2016
