NZ to Nepal: A Kiwi Engineer’s 35-Year Earthquake Legacy

It was not a surprise when I was invited to be a speaker at the 9th Asian Conference on Earthquake Engineering (9ACEE) in Kathmandu, Nepal in May this year.

After all, my story with Nepal began thirty-five years ago - when I set off from Wellington on behalf of consulting engineers Beca to prepare a bid for a project to draft a national building code for Nepal.  A crucial part of this was required to be an earthquake-design standard tailored to the needs of this country which has many natural hazards.  The extent to which each of these hazards can be mitigated competes for limited financial resources with high needs in health, schooling and food supply.

We won the project and I relocated our family to Kathmandu for 18 months to lead it.  The bid documents required that a majority of the team were to be Nepali – and this led to one of the most successful and enduring aspects of the project.  In short, at its conclusion, the Nepalese team formed a national society for earthquake technology which morphed into an NGO - National Society for Earthquake Technology-Nepal (NSET) - with more than 200 employees undertaking multi-million dollar projects in earthquake mitigation at the village, municipal and government level in Nepal and some surrounding countries. Over this time, I have been invited back a number of times to celebrate their achievements.  Although now mostly retired, I maintain frequent and close contact with ‘our’ team.

Richard at the Conference. Image credits - 9ACEE Photo Gallery

As host and organiser of the conference, NSET was naturally keen to showcase their achievements to the attendees mainly from China, Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, The Philippines and India.  They are very proud of their innovative earthquake building code which addresses the full range of structures – from multi-storey buildings to informally-built rural residential ones.  The underlying principles and means of deriving earthquake loads remain current and similar to those on which New Zealand’s is based.

Introduced as the “grandfather” of their building code, I spoke on “Safe Enough” – being deliberately provocative to challenge the attendees to consider whether their countries need to follow international norms as to the life-safety risk embodied in their choice of earthquake design forces.  It was very pertinent that, earlier this year, the Indian government withdrew the recent revision of their code which adopted these international norms because of the perceived unacceptability of increased costs.  Interestingly, the principal author of the Indian revision withdrew from his scheduled keynote at this conference.  New Zealand is re-evaluating acceptable risk from earthquakes as part of the proposed changes to earthquake-prone building regulations currently before parliament.  The proposals increase earthquake risk because of public reaction to the costs of strengthening.

There were some very interesting presentations relevant to New Zealand.  A Thai professor, in his overview of the damage to Bangkok high-rises from the recent Myanmar earthquake, opined that some of the taller buildings there should be retrofitted with damping devices to cut down sway.  This was of particular interest to me because these devices are increasingly being used in Wellington, and a number of impressive tall buildings in Bangkok have been designed for earthquakes with assistance from Beca’s Wellington engineers.

Richard with other panelists at the Conference. Image Credits - Richard Sharpe

Another presenter described a trial in using AI to give possible designs for office buildings in the Philippines.  They laboriously assembled the details of about 135 existing buildings in order to train the AI agent.  They reported promising results. We have yet to see such a study being undertaken in New Zealand.

Of particular interest to me was the evidence of the advanced international training undertaken by many of the Nepalese presenters.  There has been a significant number of post-graduate  students in earthquake engineering from Nepal in New Zealand over the last decade.  Allied to this is that the success of NSET has meant that there are reasonably paid careers for these specialists to contribute to the development of Nepal instead of being lost to their country by the lure of well-paid roles in the countries that trained them.

To see a mayor of one of the municipalities of Kathmandu talking so enthusiastically and knowledgably on earthquake disaster mitigation in a panel session was very satisfying – with the exception of Christchurch ex-mayor Lianne Dalziel, we rarely see the same in New Zealand.

Building Code Project reunion 34 years on. Image Credits - Richard Sharpe

Before returning home, we had a reunion of the Nepali project team from 34 years ago.  A number commented on how the project had changed the direction of their careers, and other remembered the day we smuggled Sir Edmund Hillary into the project office in the government complex where he made a lasting impression by talking to the team informally over a cup of chai about his experiences in Nepal.

The group promoting the Asian Conferences on Earthquake Engineering expressed an interest in interaction with New Zealand at future conferences – the next of which will be in Bangkok.

My continuing the New Zealand connection with those leading earthquake mitigation in Nepal was assisted by the NZ Asia Foundation. 

-Asia Media Centre

Banner Image - Sir Edmund Hillary meeting Building Code Project team, April 1993. Image credits - Richard Sharpe