Nepal Earthquakes Response

In 2015, 7.8 and 7.3 magnitude earthquakes took the lives of nearly 9,000 individuals and damaged more than 800,000 homes. EMI partnered with many organizations (local and international) including World Vision, Tearfund UK, a local church network, OM Nepal, and Portal Prefab.

One of EMI's partnerships with World Vision involved assessing 6 health posts and 11 school buildings in Gorkha and Sindhupalchok districts. After assessments, repair and retrofit measures were designed and documented with hand sketches and simple reports before being turned over to World Vision engineers for drafting and cost estimating. This partnership was extremely successful, with 5 structures under construction several months after EMI’s efforts.

Other services included structural damage assessments, temporary shelter consultation/design, and reconstruction design as well as other retrofit design efforts. These were for schools, homes, churches and health clinics. The types of construction encountered varied widely, including concrete frame with masonry infill and stone, brick and CMU masonry bearing structures with mud or cement mortar. EMI designed house reconstruction plans in both stone masonry and steel. Bamboo temporary shelter designs were completed as well. This was a huge effort, mobilizing 13 volunteers and staff from 3 countries over a period of 10 months.