PurposeOne of the most significant concerns of disaster management is that community at large is reluctant to initiate pre‐disaster measures at the individual level. Disaster education to schoolchildren offers the most vital answer to this grave concern. The objective of this study is to identify the factors which enhance students' awareness and promote the actual action for disaster reduction.Design/methodology/approachThis study is based on a questionnaire survey in six selected schools of Kathmandu, Nepal. Different awareness levels have been established to identify effective educational factors at each level. The analysis showed the way to implement the education program.FindingsResults showed that current school disaster education – which is based on lectures – can raise risk perception, but it cannot enable students to know the importance of pre‐disaster measures and to take actual action for disaster reduction. Self‐education is effective for realizing the importance of implementing measures. Community plays the essential role for promoting students' actual actions for disaster reduction. Future disaster education in school should be active learning for students. Continuous community involvement is the most important factor for school disaster education.Research limitations/implicationsThis study focuses on the direction of disaster education for schoolchildren. Specific cases of the education should be customized, based on the results of this study.Practical implicationsThe study findings are of significant importance for school teachers or education department while designing the curriculum for disaster education.Originality/valueThe findings and recommendations are field‐tested in Nepal and hence offer higher possibilities of adaptation, particularly in developing countries.
SignificanceHigh death tolls from recent earthquakes have highlighted the need to better identify ways to effectively reduce seismic risk. We address this need by developing a new earthquake scenario ensemble approach. We model impacts from multiple different earthquake scenarios, identifying impacts that are common to multiple scenarios. This method allows us to estimate whether particular impacts are specific to certain earthquakes or occur irrespective of the location or magnitude of the next earthquake. Our method provides contingency planners with critical information on the likelihood, and probable scale, of impacts in future earthquakes, especially in situations where robust information on the likelihood of future earthquakes is incomplete, allowing disaster risk-reduction efforts to focus on minimizing such effects and reducing seismic risk.
We present and describe strong-motion data observations from the 2015 M 7.8 Gorkha, Nepal, earthquake sequence collected using existing and new Quake-Catcher Network (QCN) and U.S. Geological Survey NetQuakes sensors located in the Kathmandu Valley. A comparison of QCN data with waveforms recorded by a conventional strong-motion (NetQuakes) instrument validates the QCN data. We present preliminary analysis of spectral accelerations, and peak ground acceleration and velocity for earthquakes up to M 7.3 from the QCN stations, as well as preliminary analysis of the mainshock recording from the NetQuakes station. We show that mainshock peak accelerations were lower than expected and conclude the Kathmandu Valley experienced a pervasively nonlinear response during the mainshock. Phase picks from the QCN and NetQuakes data are also used to improve aftershock locations. This study confirms the utility of QCN instruments to contribute to ground-motion investigations and aftershock response in regions where conventional instrumentation and open-access seismic data are limited. Initial pilot installations of QCN instruments in 2014 are now being expanded to create the Nepal-Shaking Hazard Assessment for Kathmandu and its Environment (N-SHAKE) network.Online Material: Figures of Pg arrivals, earthquake locations, epicenter change vectors, and travel-time misfit vector residuals, and tables of QCN and NetQuake stations and relocated hypocenter timing, location, and magnitude.
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