What makes Nepal so special – its vast rivers, deep gorges and Himalayan mountain range capped by the world's tallest peak – also explains the country's extreme vulnerability to natural hazards. The Eurasian and Indian plates beneath Nepal are moving fast in geological terms (about 20mm a year), pushing the young Himalayan range ever higher and creating these extraordinary landscapes. The pressure building as these plates move is enormous. The last large earthquake in living memory to hit Kathmandu was in 1934, when a quake measuring 8.4 on the Richter scale levelled most of the city, destroying more than 80,000 buildings and taking 8,500 lives. The geological history of the country tells the story of monster earthquakes over the last millennia.
Links
Resource collections
- Topics
- UN Habitat - Urban Response Collection
- Urban Response - Urban Crisis Preparedness and Risk Reduction
- Urban Response Collection - Community Engagement and Social Cohesion
- Urban Response Collection - Economic Recovery
- Urban Response Collection - Environment and Climate Change
- Urban Response Collection - Housing, Land and Property
- Urban Response Collection - Urban Crisis Response, Recovery and Reconstruction
- Urban Response Collection - Urban Resilience
