GOOD WORKS
‘Am I Dreaming?’
He was there as a tourist. But an interrupted nap later, Sanat Pokharel, P.Eng., was a worried son and professional, hoping a home he’d designed would withstand the earthquake that shook Kathmandu Three days into his vacation in Nepal on April 25, Sanat Pokharel, P.Eng., a civil engineer who lives in St. Albert, decided to grab a nap. He had spent the morning visiting Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu. A loud rumbling jolted him awake — it was like the sound of rebar cracking, which he normally only hears in the lab during tests. “Am I dreaming?” he thought. “Did a tornado hit?” Getting up, he quickly realized this was an earthquake. Even though he grew up in Nepal and has lived there as an adult, it was not like any he had experienced. “The ground went on shaking for quite some time,” he says. Dr. Pokharel tried escaping, but the bed- room door in his parents’ home was jammed. His parents banged on the other side. He yelled to them to stand by the door, so the frame might protect them if the walls came down. “I designed the house myself to be earthquake resistant, but I thought it was going to collapse. I thought I was done,” says Dr. Pokharel. Although it seemed the shaking might never stop, the quake actually lasted less than a minute. Afterwards, the door opened, and Dr. Pokharel and his parents fled the home to join hundreds of oth- ers seeking safety on the street. He started walking around, taking in the damage. “Our house is close to the prime minister’s residence. I could see the tall walls in the compound were all gone. There were col- lapsed and damaged houses,” he says. “I worked in Nepal for 18 years. I have seen devastation from floods and other earthquakes. But this was the worst. I was not believing my eyes sometimes.” Dr. Pokharel volunteered to inspect homes and schools, ad- vising whether they were safe to enter. Over several days, he assessed the damage on about 50 homes in Kathmandu and rural areas outside the city, including 22 he had designed. The homes he designed — built to be earthquake resistant — were in good shape. Most of the newer homes he inspected in the city featured concrete pillars and beams. They had cracks but could be repaired. Many older homes, however, were no longer safe and needed to be demolished. “I had to tell my uncle that his house needs to be rebuilt. It’s hard for everyone.” In rural areas, where villagers built their homes from stone, mud, and wooden beams, many buildings had collapsed. Hundreds were homeless. “People were desperate.”
BEFORE THE QUAKE An hour before the April 25 earthquake, Dr. Sanat Pokharel, P.Eng., visits Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu and grabs a selfie. He made it through
unscathed and so did the ancient temple. -photo courtesy Dr. Sanat Pokharel, P.Eng.
LACK OF INSPECTION TAKES HUMAN TOLL
New buildings in Nepal are often designed to withstand earth- quakes. But construction work is often not inspected to ensure that standards are met, says Dr. Pokharel. It’s one of the reasons the death toll was so high. “People don’t follow the bylaws or rules. They sometimes don’t even use engineers for design,” says Dr. Pokharel. “They decide OK, let’s take out two steel rods to save money. I have even found buildings designed by engineers for two or three floors, but then the owner added two more without changing the design.” While life is slowly returning back to normal in Katmandu, many repairs remain to be done and aid is slow to arrive in many remote areas. Political unrest doesn’t help, and the government has yet to disburse more than US $4 billion in international reconstruc- tion aid. Dr. Pokharel returned to St. Albert on May 8, and now he wor- ries about the friends and family he left behind. His parents could have come to Canada on visas but chose to stay in their homeland. He continues to be hopeful that the relief funds that poured into Nepal will reach those in need. “The international community has provided a lot of support,” he says. “We are very thankful.”
74 | PEG WINTER 2015
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