The earthquake has posed a challenge to them to apply their learning and theoretical understanding of disaster management into practice for the first time since they started their trainings.
And, here is how these nearly one thousand youths of 19 wards of Kirtipur engaged themselves in the rescue and relief operation in their community within half an hour of the quake that shook the nation. The efforts to train and prepare around 3,000 youths in the municipality for disaster management have paid off with many lives saved and casualties minimized to an extent, local observers say.
In a bid to prepare youth at the community level to help minimize casualties resulting from the disaster, the Disaster Management Committee (DMC) was formed in all of the 19 wards in Kirtipur as part of the Urban Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Preparedness and Community based Disaster Risk Management Project. It was implemented by Lumanti, Environment and Public Health Organization (ENPHO) and Oxfam, upon the funding of UKAID.
DMC is led by the Ward Secretary of the municipality office while its members are from the communities.
Immediately after the quake hit the nation, these youths rushed to their community to rescue and save people trapped in the debris of collapsed homes.
“To be honest, I was terrified after the earthquake. However, I was able to overcome the fear when we got the call to help out. I gained more strength when I saw destruction everywhere and realized I was so lucky to survive. I helped rescue those who were trapped while fellow members of the DMC arrived at the scene with equipments to clear the debris,” 26-year-old Sagar Basnet from Ward 15—one of the worst hit wards of Kirtipur—told Republica.
“After the quake, first I made sure that my family members and my home was safe. Then I left for the stockpile storage where other volunteers had already arrived. We took out our helmets, shovels, wheelbarrows, wheelchairs, stretchers, tarpaulins, and other rescue materials from there to start the rescue efforts in our community,” said Smriti Bajracharya, 19-year-old resident of Kirtipur’s Ward 4.
As part of the disaster preparedness, the project had built a stockpile store in each ward of the municipality. The earthquake resistant home stores various equipments needed to carry out rescue and relief operation in the aftermath of an earthquake.
“We didn’t find much destruction in our ward, so we were largely focused on soothing the fears of the locals who were panicked by the quake. We escorted them to an open space where we quickly built some makeshift camps,” she added.
For the youth groups, coordination or the lack of it among volunteers and disaster management teams posed the biggest challenge during the relief and rescue efforts.
“During such difficult times, when there is panic and fear of running riot, we need better coordination and collaboration between rescuers and relief workers in order to avoid confusion and chaos. We were aware of this problem before the earthquake and we had agreed to an open space here in Ward 2 to start our rescue works. We also made announcements in communities urging DMC and other task group members to gather at a single point,” shared Bikram Maharjan, a youth volunteer from Ward 2.
“As soon as volunteers and group members gathered, we dispatched them for different purposes like search and rescue, first aid, hospital support, water management and WASH among others,” he added.
DMC also has various task forces like Light Search and Rescue, First Aid, Damage and Need Assessment, and WASH, among others, which comprise of trained members.
After wrapping up the initial rescue and search efforts, some of these team members are now actively working on maintaining sanitation and hygiene in the makeshift camps in Kirtipur as well as Tundikhel and Naikap among other areas in the Capital where victims are taking shelter after being rendered homeless by the quake.
“Realizing the need of clean drinking water and toilets, and to prevent the outbreak of any communicable disease, we have built nearly one hundred toilets in the makeshift shelters,” informed Maharjan, who is among the WASH task force.
Locals said that the toll of human casualties in the municipality was relatively low in comparison to the number of destructed homes. “DMC, in coordination with other concerned stakeholders, have been doing the needful to spread awareness among locals about the disaster and the possible measures they should adopt during and after earthquake,” said Ramesh Prasad Nepal, municipality office secretary for Ward 7, who also heads the ward’s DMC. “The figure could have been further low if there were no old house structures,” he said.
According to the data from Kirtipur Municipality Office, the earthquake claimed 41 lives while a total of 2,728 homes were completely damaged by the quake.
For Sobina Lama, Disaster Program Manager of Lumanti, the formation of DMC and other structures have also become beneficial in coordinating and distributing the relief materials sent from other relief groups outside.
“The groups that have been formed have been very resourceful in distributing relief materials amidst news reports and complaints elsewhere that the relief materials were distributed in uneven ways,” she said.
“We conducted trainings, but the earthquake rocked the country when we were still working on formulating plans on how to proceed at the wake of a disaster. The experience of engaging in this earthquake coupled with practical knowledge we received in the training will be instrumental in minimizing the casualties, if there is any other disaster in the future,” she concluded.
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