GOOD WORKS
BY CORINNE LUTTER Member & Internal Communications Coordinator
parents. Across the country, the death toll was more than 9,000, with another 23,000 injured. Infrastructure damage was measured in billions of dollars.
Shortly before noon on Saturday, April 25, children from the Shree Mangal Dvip (SMD) Boarding School in Kathmandu, Nepal, were eating in the dining hall. A 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck the region. Beyond the complex, brick walls crumbled into the streets and buildings turned to rubble. Seven-year-old Tsering Yangzom was on her way to the dining hall when the walls and stairs started to shake around her. Plaster cracked and fell to the ground. After the quake was over, the little girl with a sweet smile and long brown hair told Shirley Blair, the school’s director, what was going through her mind. “I felt that I am going to die.” Ms. Blair, a native of Victoria, B.C., was in her office when the earthquake struck. She took cover under her desk and started pray- ing and could hear people screaming outside. Fortunately, none of SMD’s students and staff were hurt. Ms. Blair quickly posted a Facebook message to reassure friends, fam- ily, and SMD supporters that, despite damage to school buildings, everyone at the school was OK: “Some fatalities in the neighbour- hood. We are sheltering neighbours. Food, water, meds going to be needed in the valley. Here too.” Students soon learned that many of the remote mountain vil- lages where their families live had been flattened. Two children lost
EDMONTON IMPACT
More than 10,000 kilometres away in Edmonton, retired civil engineer Andrew Mitchell, P.Eng., was shocked to learn of the de- struction. “I thought, good heavens, what’s happened to the school?” He went online, relieved to read that everyone was safe. Although he’s never travelled to Nepal, Mr. Mitchell has strong connections to SMD. He met the school’s founder, Tibetan Lama Thrangu Rinpoche, more than 35 years ago. Over the years, he’s followed the lama’s humanitarian work in Nepal, including his schools for impoverished Himalayan children. About 10 years ago, supported by stories in this magazine’s predecessor, a newspaper called The PEGG, Mr. Mitchell asked fellow APEGA professionals to develop a seismic retrofit plan for A Block, SMD’s oldest dormitory. There were fears that the four-sto- rey dorm, which houses half of the school’s 600 children, would “go down like a deck of cards” if a major earthquake hit, he says. With the Kathmandu Valley located in a high-risk seismic zone, experts had warned for years that a megaquake was inevitable. Other civil engineers, all Professional Engineers licensed by APEGA, helped Mr. Mitchell with the retrofit. Antoni Kowalczewski, P.Eng., took the lead on the redesign. John Alexander, P.Eng.,
A FACE OF HOPE Seven-year-old Tsering Yangzom, all smiles for this photo, feared for her life when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck Nepal on April 25. She and many of her classmates spent weeks living in tents. -photo courtesy Shree Mangal Dvip Boarding School
72 | PEG WINTER 2015
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