Nepal Earthquake of 2015 - Impacts, Environment, and Economy

Running head: NEPAL EARTHQUAKE OF 2015 1
Nepal Earthquake of 2015
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NEPAL EARTHQUAKE OF 2015 2
Nepal Earthquake of 2015
An earthquake struck central Nepal on April 2015 and had significant impacts across the
country. It is the most massive earthquake to struck Nepal for almost 80 years, and it left a lot of
catastrophic effects. Nine thousand people were left dead, thousands of them were hurt, and over
six hundred thousand structures were destroyed. However, the earthquake was felt throughout
the eastern and central Nepal, in northern India and northwestern Bangladesh (Witze, 2015). The
shock was of magnitude 7.8 and struck around noon. Its epicenter was almost 34 kilometres
southeast of Lamjung and 77 kilometers west of the city. It had a focus of about 15kilometers to
the ground. Within an hour, aftershocks of about 6.6 magnitude shook the region with several
small ones occurring in the area in the succeeding days. In May 2015, another aftershock of
magnitude 7.3 struck 47 miles east of Kathmandu killing more than 100 humans while leaving
about 1,900 injured (Sitharam & Vinod, 2015).
The report of casualties the following day after the main quake put the death toll in
hundreds, but as days passed by, the numbers surpassed 1,000 and almost 2,000 by the end of the
day (Nayak, 2015). Rescue teams reached all the affected villages within two weeks after the
earthquake occurred. Approximately 9,000 people died including the fatalities of the parts of
China, Bangladesh and India were reported. Almost sixteen thousand and 2.8 million people got
affected (Nayak, 2015). A quarter of the country’s population was affected by this quake and its
aftermath.
This earthquake had an enormous impact on the environment. First, it produced
landslides that devastated the rural areas and the densely populated areas of the city. Debris and
bricks from collapsed buildings filled the streets making movement difficult. The partially