On 25 April 2015, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Nepal with its epicentre in Gorkha district, approximately 81km northwest of the capital, Kathmandu. Intense tremors, and subsequent aftershocks, landslides, and avalanches caused widespread damage to homes, land, public and private infrastructure and livelihoods, affecting millions of people across 39 out of 75 districts. The Nepalese government categorized 14 of these districts as severely affected. Combined, over five million people reside in these districts.
Amid ongoing emergency relief efforts following the initial earthquake, Nepal was struck by a second earthquake on 12 May 2015, which registered a magnitude of 7.4 on the Richter scale. The epicentre of the second earthquake was located further east than the first, on the confluence of Sindhupalchok and Dolakha districts, compounding the initial devastation in already affected areas. According to government estimates, the earthquakes combined caused over 8,790 casualties and 22,300 injuries, and left over 500,000 houses and hundreds of historical and cultural monuments destroyed. It is estimated that the earthquakes affected the lives of approximately eight million people, constituting more than a quarter of the population of Nepal.
In light of this, in May, the World Food Programme, in partnership with the Government’s Nepal Food Security Monitoring System (NeKSAP) and the Food Security Cluster, conducted a food security assessment in 11 of the aforementioned districts.
The following joint assessment, conducted over the course of September and October 2015, was designed both as a monitoring exercise and to further inform broader early recovery efforts identified as priorities in the Post-Disaster Needs Assessment, including food security, livelihoods, agriculture, service access and protection. To that end, in addition to the partners in the May assessment, it also included more partners, including OCHA, FAO, UNDP, REACH, the Early Recovery and Protection Clusters, and the Nepal Red Cross Society.
The assessment sought to: a) update information on key thematic areas included in the Post Disaster Needs Assessment, b) identify and measure changes since the May 2015 baseline assessment, c) identify key trends, gaps and risks across the assessed sectors and d) enable all stakeholders to derive the information they need to define their own cluster or agency-specific early recovery and development strategy.
Findings from the assessment are presented below, which have been agreed upon jointly by all partners. The results presented here are for households in 11 districts worst affected by the earthquake and capture the situation at one point in time, mid-September to mid-October. Furthermore, because of the geographic focus and timing of the joint assessment the results are not generalizable to other parts of Nepal nor to other times of the year. For nationally representative data, the readers should refer to the latest Nepal Living Standards Survey and Nepal Demographic and Health Survey.
Abstracted by Mr. Qu Minhao
Department of International Cooperation and Rescue, Ministry of Emergency Management, China
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