Forgotten Unforgettable Day- April 25th of 2015 in Nepal
The cold morning it was and holiday for most of Nepalese as it was the Saturday. Off from the work that day I was sort of busy taking selfies to upload on one of the popular social networking sites. I was adjusting my phone and looking for the best possible place inside the room to capture the pics. I sat on the parapet nearby the window holding phone on the right hand and gazing at the phone screen where my face was looking bright with the light, the time was 11:56 AM and the date of course, April 25th, 2015. All of a sudden I heard the sound of quivering windows. At first I had thought it was shivering due to the wind or noise of flying airplane or helicopter above the sky nearby. Then all of sudden I realized that was the tremors caused by the earthquake. It didn't take me much time to move out of my room to our living room shouting earthquake. By the next two to three minutes almost all of us were at living room still unknown to take what action. We felt the strong earthquake together with kind of wheezing sound of wind at the same time. Utensils fell of from shelves, photo frames collapsed from the walls and TV and desktop computer dropped from their places. When we reached at lawn outside the house, I thought of my sister and my young niece, who live 2 km far from my home. Then I thought of my school, students with fear in my mind that was multiplying with the aftershocks. We looked at the UNESCO enlisted the World Heritage Site, Swayambhunath stupa, which is located at the top of nearby hill. Later we came to know from words of mouth the actual epicenter of earthquake was somewhere in West Northern part of Kathmandu, at Barpak located in district of Gorkha, around 177 km far from capital city Kathmandu, where we were living. Not only the temples and monasteries at Swayambhunath stupa hillside, several others important cultural and historical monuments of Kathmandu valley such as Bouddha nath, Hanuman Dhoka Palace, Patan Durbar Square, Bhaktapur Durbar Square and many others heritages fell apart together with thousands of houses from different part of Nepal close to the main epicenter of the earthquake. We had to stay and sleep outside the house for couple of days to save ourselves. The next day various newspapers, online news portals and TV news showed horrific scenes of collapsed buildings, dead bodies as well as the miraculous rescue of lucky people who survived the earthquake in the most unbelievable way. Member countries of SAARC, European Union, Japan, Canada, USA and Israel arrived in Nepal. In the same way international media and journalist covered news of this tragic incident with their own flavors. Everything was about to get to the normal until the 12th of May, when the major aftershocks of major earthquake of April 25 hit this time the West Northern part of Kathmandu. The weakened buildings and houses from previous earthquake fell down this time killing hundreds of people and injuring other hundreds. Earthquake in 2015 killed more than 9000 people, injured 22000 others, damaged $10 billion worth properties and taught lessons to people to build earthquake proof houses as well as to be prepared for the safety from any monstrous earthquake in future. It's been more than 2.5 years since the major earthquake hit Nepal but still fallen cultural and historical monuments have not been reconstructed yet. Foreign donations from international communities were returned back a year ago by the then government of Nepal since they were incapable of using them wisely. The capital city, Kathmandu has the highest population among other cities of Nepal and many houses which were partially damaged have been renovated in a way just covering the crack walls with new coats of cement and painting. With the demand and need of accommodations for the people flocking in capital city from out of Kathmandu for the jobs, better education, and facilities. Landlords in Kathmandu city are adding more floors on the top of their half century old houses and century old houses. Many houses are still building without proper engineering standard and techniques. Nepal is an earthquake prone country but the infrastructure development and construction are not done with wise consideration of possible earthquake.The physical infrastructures of Nepal questioned me and those who worry about the future. We lost the valuable lives of people, properties and pride of Nepal, historical and cultural heritages as well as monuments. But still why we behave and pretend as if nothing has happened? Are we really forgetful? Are we really prepared for the next big earthquake? Have we really forgotten the April 25th of 2015? Nepali is Indo-Aryan language similar to Hindi in terms of alphabets but while speaking we don't care much of the grammar. For example, in Nepali language we say eating food. That's fine right? What if we Nepalese say eating tea, eating water, eating cigarette and eating wine as well. Yes, it's weird.