Nepal helps Bhutan strengthen earthquake preparedness

A full-scale earthquake simulation in Bhutan’s Capital has exposed gaps in emergency equipment and resource mobilisation while testing how authorities, hospitals and emergency responders would coordinate after a major quake, with Nepal’s earthquake experts providing technical support for the exercise.

The simulation recreated a scenario akin to a magnitude 7.5 earthquake in Thimphu, which involved mass casualties, damaged buildings, disrupted roads and power supply, and tested how authorities would make decisions, communicate, coordinate rescue operations and mobilise resources in the aftermath of such a disaster.

The National Society for Earthquake Technology-Nepal (NSET), with support from the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) and Bhutanese authorities, designed and facilitated the full-scale simulation exercise on June 23 as part of efforts to strengthen the Thimphu Earthquake Contingency Plan. Findings of the exercise were published by a Nepali weekly on Saturday.

CDRI was conceptualised by India and launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York in 2019 to promote the resilience of infrastructure systems to climate and disaster risks.

It has more than 50 member countries, which include India, Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Germany, Italy, the US, the UK, Sri Lanka and the Netherlands. It also brings together bodies like the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, United Nations Development Programme and European Union.

The exercise in Thumpu followed a tabletop simulation and aimed to test the contingency arrangements in a field setting, according to the State-run Bhutan Broadcasting Service (BBS) and the Nepali Times weekly newspaper.

Bhutan and Nepal lie in the seismically active Himalayan region and are vulnerable to major earthquakes. Bhutan was hit by a magnitude 5.5 earthquake on June 7, while a magnitude 5 earthquake struck Rukum East in western Nepal on July 19.

Bhutan’s deadliest recorded earthquake was an estimated magnitude 8.5 quake in 1714. In Nepal, more than 9,000 people were killed when a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck in April 2015, followed by powerful aftershocks, including a magnitude 7.3 quake the following month. During the full-scale exercise, Bhutanese authorities created a mass-casualty scenario involving the country’s largest referral hospital and two primary healthcare centres, Nepali Times reported.

The scenario assumed that some emergency medical staff could not reach the hospital because of family emergencies or blocked roads, while the hospitals themselves were without power.

BBS reported that the exercise involved response operations at nine locations in Thimphu, including a simulated hotel collapse, severely damaged residential buildings and a fire in Olakha - a prominent urban area and commercial zone in the Capital city.

At the hospital, patients and staff were evacuated to designated safe zones, temporary medical tents were set up, and ambulances transported simulated casualties from affected areas, BBS reported.

The exercise also highlighted gaps in the availability of equipment and resources that could be mobilised quickly to establish field hospitals if the main hospital were compromised.

“Currently, through this simulation exercise, we realised that we don’t have that kind of resource to be mobilised immediately and set up field hospitals,” BBS quoted Phub Tshering, incident commander of the earthquake simulation exercise at the hospital, as saying.

The exercise also tested multi-agency coordination, communication, decision-making and resource mobilisation.

CDRI Director General Amit Prothi told the press that simulations were important because, unlike in a real disaster, participants knew in advance where resources would be needed and could therefore identify weaknesses in their systems.

The simulation team also assessed critical infrastructure, including 11 bridges, a hospital, an electricity terminal, the telecom network and a food supply warehouse, Nepali Times reported.

The four-hour exercise involved around 500 people in various roles and was attended by Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay, who is the country’s overall disaster response commander, the newspaper said.

The outcome of the exercise was analysed, and NSET prepared a series of recommendations to strengthen Bhutan’s earthquake preparedness.

One recommendation was for Bhutan to establish at least one six-member earthquake first-responder rescue squad for every ward serving 15,000-20,000 people, according to Nepali Times.

Surya Narayan Shrestha of NSET told Nepali Times that Prime Minister Tobgay said Bhutan needed to learn from Nepal due to the similarity in their circumstances.

The exercise was part of a broader effort to strengthen Bhutan’s preparedness for a major earthquake, especially for urban centres like Thimpu.