Public School Earthquake Safety Program in Nepal.

Earthquakesare one of the most significant natural hazards in Nepal and there is a long history of destructive earthquakes in the region. Despite the risk of earthquake disasters, however, school construction practice in Nepal has largely ignored the issues of structural safety. Most schools are built without following proper design guidelines. As an effective tool to reduce earthquake disaster risk in the public schools of Nepal, the Public School Earthquake Safety Program was recently initiated in Nepal. In this program, more than 1000 public schools from six districts of Nepal were evaluated for earthquake safety, and various awareness raising and retrofitting programs were implemented. This paper describes the program features, extent of community participation, retrofitting processes and lessons learned while implementing the earthquake safety program. It also demonstrates how school earthquake safety programs ultimately increase the seismic safety of the entire community in the Himalayan regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]