Nepal lies in an active seismic belt. The history is full of devastating earthquakes. The earthquake risk in Nepal is believed to be one of the highest in the world. On the other hand, more than 98 % of the buildings in Nepal are constructed by the owners following the advice of local craftsmen. Consequently, most residential buildings, even in urban environment, do not receive any rational design for strength. Thus, in both urban and rural areas the traditional craftsmen play the pivotal role although they are not given any specific training on seismic safety, and they do not have adequate access to information related to safer building practices. Further, although most municipalities do have a system of building permits, there is no provision in the process to check the submitted plans against the strength criteria. There is poor institutional and technical capacity within the local authorities for implementing strength-related provisions even if they were to be introduced in to the building permit process. Under such apparently difficult situation, promoting safer building construction can not be possible without taking a radical approach such as shifting the emphasis from training the engineers to training the masons, and relying more in convincing the house-owners on earthquake safety rather than only controlling them through the process of building permits. Adhering to such approaches, the National Society for Earthquake Technology-Nepal (NSET) has been successfully implementing initiatives for improving seismic performances of new constructions in urban and rural areas of Nepal. Efforts for integrating seismic safety in construction practice of owner-built houses is considered a part of a comprehensive strategy that includes public awareness programs, regular consultation for house-owners, informal training to masons and petty contractors, and education and training programs at the community levels. Efforts are being made to build the capacity of local authorities (municipalities) in adopting seismic provision of building codes in their building permit process. Seismic intervention in public school in rural areas with community participation and with local mason involvement serves as tool to promote safe construction. Awareness tools like simplified shake table demonstrations and earthquake safety exhibition with real-scale construction model are found very effective to convince the people on the benefits of seismic provisions. This paper analyzes the existing construction mechanism and trends, and describes the approach, tools and effectiveness of the initiatives taken for increasing safety of the owner-built buildings in Nepal. Lessons learned from the implementation of programs are also discussed in the paper.
- National Society for Earthquake Technology