KP Sharma Oli: Committed to speed up reconstruction process

Nepalese protesters shout slogans against the government as they are stopped by the police on the first anniversary of the devastating earthquake in Kathmandu. (Photo: AP)

Hundreds of Nepalese on Sunday held memorial services to mark the first anniversary of last year’s devastating earthquake that killed nearly 9,000 people, as victims still forced to live in tents accused the government of failing to look after them.

Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli laid flowers at the demolished 19th-century Dharahara tower where people gathered to pay homage to those killed when the 7.9-magnitude temblor struck, after a minute’s silence to remember the deceased.

Though the quake jolted Nepal on April 25, 2015, the memorials were being held on Sunday in its grim reminder as per the Bikram Era calendar.

The quake was extremely devastating for the land-locked Himalayan nation, displacing lakhs of families besides putting a huge dent in the country’s economy.

Mr Oli paid tribute to those killed in the earthquake, wishing for the eternal peace of the departed souls as he said the government is distributing eligibility certificates to the 31,19,000 affected people to enable them to avail promised grants to rebuild their houses.

“The government was committed to providing safe shelter to the earthquake survivors by the rainy season. The government was raising temporary community settlements for the difficulty time in view of the coming rainy season,” Mr Oli said.

The Nepalese Prime Minister expressed his government’s commitment to accelerate the reconstruction activities, and assured of speedy distribution of relief amount with assistance on designs and mapping for the reconstruction of safe and quake-resistant houses in the quake-hit districts.

“As we have a very few artisans well-versed in woodcrafts, we need to train more people to reconstruct the quake-damaged infrastructures in their original design,” he noted.

Shortly after the quake, that killed nearly 9,000 people, the government had promised to pay $1,850 to each family whose houses were damaged. The quake and aftershocks that hit central Nepal, including Kathmandu, also injured 22,000 others.

Ramesh Shrestha, whose house was demolished in the quake, said: “I am scared if my family will get compensation at all. It has already been a year.”

Around 8,00,000 houses including hundreds of school buildings had collapsed due to the twin earthquakes of April 25 and May 12 that hit as many as 14 districts of Nepal. Some four million survivors are still living in temporary shelters, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.