Nepal turns to bamboo to rebuild earthquake-hit schools
Education in emergencies
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Nepalese workers build a temporary school from bamboo in Kathmandu after the earthquake last year
Nepal isturning to bamboo, nicknamed “vegetable steel”, as it rebuildshomes and schools after last year’s devastating earthquakeswhich left hundreds of thousands homeless.
“Bamboo is a great material. The biggest enemy (in a quake)is weight so bamboo is perfect because it is light, flexible andvery strong,” said Nepalese architect Nripal Adhikary.
“It can be as strong as steel but it’s much more ecologicalbecause it doesn’t need energy to produce. People call it‘vegetable steel’.”
Twin earthquakes in April and May 2015 killed almost 9000people – a third of them children – and destroyed nearly a million buildings in the Himalayannation. Donors have pledged $4.1 billion for reconstruction butrebuilding has been delayed by a political crisis.
More than 50,000 classrooms were destroyed or damaged and l in the immediate aftermath. Hundreds of temporary learning centres were set up in the weeks after the disaster. In the worst-hit areas, 90% of schools were destroyed.
In October, the urgent retrofitting of the 75% of school structures that are unsafe in Nepal was recommended by the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Risk and Resilience recommended
Adhikary, speaking by phone from Kathmandu, said thegovernment had recently approved the use of bamboo to rebuildschools and was expected to approve its use for reconstructinghomes.
Bamboo is ideal for rebuilding in Nepal’s mountainousterrain because it grows widely and is easier to transport thanheavier materials, said Adhikary, Nepal’s national coordinatorfor the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR).
Building with bamboo is also about 50% cheaper thanwith other materials.
Destroyed classroom at Janajyoti Higher Secondary School in Gairmudi village in Dolakha Picture: UNICEF/Karki
Technological advances have improved its durability, headded, while new systems for joining bamboo lengths mean it canbe used to build larger span structures than in the past.
INBAR is working with Nepal’s government and otherorganisations on a $800,000 pilot project using bamboo to build150 homes and 10 schools which they hope other agencies willreplicate.
Government ministers, aid agencies and building expertsattended a workshop in Kathmandu recently to discuss bamboo usein reconstruction programmes.
Nepal is home to 54 bamboo species with coverage estimatedat 63,000 hectares. Experts say its sustainable use will alsohelp boost local employment and economies.
Earthquake engineering expert David Trujillo said interestin building with bamboo in quake-prone regions had grown since a1999 quake in his native Colombia.
While many newer masonry buildings collapsed, the olderbamboo buildings withstood the tremor. Afterwards there was abig effort to rebuild with bamboo.
Trujillo, who worked on the reconstruction effort inColombia, said bamboo was a very sustainable material which grewextremely fast, reaching 25 to 30 metres in only six months.
A World at School and Gordon Brown, the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education, have been leading the – which includes children out of school due to conflicts, natural disasters and health crises.
Globalpartners are now working together to develop solutions to be discussed and agreed ahead of the World Humanitarian Summit in May.
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