IFC16 Vienna

Documentary On One -After the shock. '

Tim Desmond
(RT, Ireland)

www.rte.ie/doconone

'Documentary On One - After the shock.' www.rte.ie/doconone

FX:

Rumbling sounds

Tim/Reporter: What youre hearing is the closest we can get to experiencing the
actual sound of an earthquake.. it is said to be one of the most
frightening natural phenomena humans can experience.
Witness :

All of a sudden the vibrations started .it was a situation of quite

panic..

Reporter:

On the 25th April and again on the 12th of may 2015 , Nepal
became the latest location for the destructive power of the planet.

FX:

Rumbling sounds

Witness 2:

Scary.7.8 scale Richter scale .scary many people are ..die

FX:

Rumbling sounds.

Reporter:

These sounds give us an idea of the violence and intensity in this

geological collision zone, where the Indian tectonic plate pushes
north into the Eurasian plate.

FX:

Rumbling sounds.

01:12
Paul Devaney: What we were hearing was deepthe most deep rumbling loudit
wasnt thunderousit wasnt you know, this very exciting clatter of
something, it was more of a very deep rumbling.
FX:

Rumbling sounds.

Reporter:

Its location on a major tectonic uplift is what makes Nepal so

beautiful but the location is also a drawback. Land locked, everything
comes in and out by road and by air. Nepal is dominated culturally
and politically by its giant to the south, India, and to a lesser extent,
peering over the mighty Himalayas, is China.

'Documentary On One - After the shock.' www.rte.ie/doconone

Music :
FX:

Rumbling sounds.

Reporter:

Ive come to Nepal to search through the aftermath and see the effects
of a natural disaster on a country that scores lower than most on the
international development charts. Im also here to see how
technology and innovation are being used to improve how the world
responds to natural disasters

FX:

Aircraft announcement Ladies and gentlemen .welcome to

Kathmandu where the local time is 5:05 in the afternoon.

02:20
Reporter:

Ive arrived in the city ten weeks since the first earthquake .. so
were just passing near to the grounds of the hyatt regency hotel in
the centre of Kathmandu and around the gardens all along the side of
the road are still these temporary shelters made of tarpaulins
theyve now developed into almost semi permanent settlements
with water tanks and little access roads into them .so the housing
situation here is still not sorted out and thats in the capital city
Kathmandu which escaped relatively unscathed from the April 25th
earthquake . Alak Nepali lives in Kathmandu tells me people in
Kathmandu are coping since the earthquakes.

Alak Nepali : The most affected part of Kathmandu was most of the ancient
heritage places that were destroyed , but now like people are getting
on to their normal lives , but still there are people who have lost
their family members as well as their homes and also it seems that
most of the people they are facing difficulty in, like , their houses that
are damaged.
Reporter:

More than 100 Irish people were caught up in the earthquakes; among
them was Paul Devaney who was at one of the countrys most iconic
locations.

'Documentary On One - After the shock.' www.rte.ie/doconone

03:45
Paul Devaney: I was in Nepal climbing. I was at base camp at Everest and we were
25 days into our mission to climb Everest. We were just finishing up
some of our acclimatisation and we were resting, on the 25thit was
about 11.30 in the morning and our dining tent is quite a large tent
and the table in the dining tent started to move.. Slowly at first from
side to side you could just feel this very minute movement and then
all of a sudden a big jerking movement .it really felt quite wild..
Reporter:

While Paul Devaney was experiencing the quake high in the

mountains , his friend Deepesh Shakya, a Nepali who normally lives in
Dublin, happened to be on holidays in Nepal and was in his family
home in Kathmandu .

Deepesh Shakya: By the time when the earthquake hit I had just finished my lunch
and i was just lying on the bed taking some rest and there is this
cupboard in front of my bed and that started to shake. Basically
started a little tremor and by the time I jumped out of my bed it was
like a violent shaking. I was literally holding tightly on the railing just
not to be thrown out on the floor .it was a terrifying experience..
there was a huge movement, so it wasnt even safe to go down the
stair so youll never know youll be thrown out, there might be injury.
So after a bit when we finally came down and you could see all the
people coming down, there was fear people were not confident like
whether to go in and even the little shake, basically terrifying
everybody.
05:20
Presenter:

Paul and Deepesh both stayed on after the earthquake and continued
to work on the relief effort receiving support from the Nepali
community back in Ireland. When a crisis like this begins to unfold,
humanitarian agencies from across the world respond, using the
latest mapping and communications technology to assess the
immediate need. Ros OSullivan is humanitarian co-ordinator with
Concern Worldwide (Irish humanitarian NGO), he arrived within
hours of the first earthquake.

'Documentary On One - After the shock.' www.rte.ie/doconone

Ros O Sullivan: Communications were down or they were very very haphazard,
transport was very difficult, fuel became very very scarce, people
were frightened, people were afraid .even , you know, in and
around Kathmandu where large parts of the city were spared nobody
was sleeping indoors, they were all sleeping outside information
was very very scattered coming in from the outlying areas.it was
very difficult to get a handle on what was happening.
06:27
FX :

Time pips.

Presenter :

The earthquake was now the next international humanitarian crisis..

FX:

News programme sting

Newsreader: Good morning its 7 oclock on Monday the 27th of April.the news
headlines the death toll from Nepals earthquake has risen to 3,200
with thousands more unaccounted for .
Presenter :

Meanwhile Paul Devaney became involved in efforts at search and

rescue at everest base camp.

Paul Devaney: Well the first twenty four hours we were involved in a pretty hectic
search and recovery operation at base camp. within maybe half an
hour of the earthquake dissipating, you know we all emerged back
into the middle of camp to find that it was gone.the whole middle
of the base camp had been wiped out in the process 19 people had
been killed at base camp.so for folks that were left it was roll up
your sleeves , get your gear on and lets start carrying people .Base
camp , im sure like the centre of Kathmandu , base camp became a
trauma centre , it became outdoor medical facilities, triages at every
corner ..everyone that was a climber became part of the search and
recovery unit , in the same way that people in Kathmandu Im sure
were co-opted into pulling people out of rubble yeah it was a
pretty harrowing day .you try and see as little as you can whilst
doing all you can.
'Documentary On One - After the shock.' www.rte.ie/doconone

07:53
Presenter:

There are about 330 humanitarian agencies implementing over 2,000

humanitarian activities since April. The way the humanitarian
community responds to disasters is constantly being updated in line
with new technology, from obvious improvements in
communications, mobile and social media applications, to less
obvious innovations like new developments in business management,
in materials technology and construction methods. Like most areas of
modern life, technology is making big changes and this is true in
humanitarian relief..one early success in the Nepal earthquake was
the use of radar technology to find people trapped alive under
rubbleits due to the development by NASA of a piece of equipment
called Finder - Jim Lux , task manager of the project at NASAs jet
propulsion laboratory , told me over Skype , how the system works.

09:02
Jim Lux :

In a large scale disaster the challenge is in you have hundreds if

not thousands of collapsed structures.and you need a way to stand
outside the structure and tell if theres somebody alive in there that
you can put a secondary search team on and thats the need that
Finder was designed to address is the Haiti and the now the Nepal
situation points up the need for this ability .so what Finder does is ,
its a low power microwave signal . The radio signal goes into the
rubble and reflects back from the rubble and from anything inside the
rubble and the rubble doesnt move so we look for motion. The
motion were looking for is the motion from heartbeats and from
breathing and we can detect those very tiny motions then we look at
the characteristics of that motion and determine if its from a human
.What Finder does is it puts up a display of the heartbeats and the
breathing detected in a percentage quality score , so it says like
theres a ninety five percent or a fifty percent so that the operator
can kind of combine that with their local knowledge to say that
theres a likely chance that theres a victim in there. The idea of
detecting heartbeats with microwave radar has actually been around
for decades, probably as soon as they built the first radars they
realised that they could measure heartbeats .Whats changed in the
last few years is that technology available for us to actually build a
'Documentary On One - After the shock.' www.rte.ie/doconone

system that can go into the field has improved . Before , ten years ago
it would have taken a whole bench full of expensive microwave
equipment and some skilled people to interpret the sort of vague
results whereas today weve got ... the wireless industry gives us
inexpensive components so we can actually build the radar in a small
box and weve got powerful computers that have batteries just like
you use in your cell phone to watch movies , do email and browse the
web, can also do the processing to look at the signals and determine
whether they are human or not. So thats what we leveraged, was
this technology , the components that are available , the computers
that are available and then we combined that with NASA jet
propulsion laboratory . We do a lot of detecting really faint signals
coming from a long way away so then we combined that and the
software to make a device that you know fits in an overhead bin , that
a first responder and just take out and put on the ground and
operate .
11:25
Presenter:

Four lives were saved when the finder was deployed in Nepal, proving
that cutting edge space technology can be of benefit in a disaster
situation.The immediate trauma of the rescue of people buried alive
after the earthquake has left a lingering fear among the Nepalese
people.

FX:

Car interior .

Presenter:

We heard a lot about people being in fear of another earthquake and

I know there are little tremors every day, but is that fear gone now
that time has passed ?.

Alak Nepali: Actually while talking to most people it seems that now they have
moved on to the normal life, its like they are used to the tremors as
well. Also last night we felt one small tremor, but like, elder ones they
are really scared that another tremor is going to hit.a bigger one. So
that age group are still conscious that another big earthquake is going
to come..
Music .

'Documentary On One - After the shock.' www.rte.ie/doconone

12:30
Presenter :

Back in April , as the hours turned into days , the scale of the
devastation in the countryside became clearer..

Ros OSullivan: Were talking about 95-100% destruction of houses and property in
the rural areas, so whole communities were wiped out in terms of
their physical infrastructure and many, many people lost family
members or had family members injured.
Presenter :

Ros OSullivan of Concern .

Ros OSullivan: Theyre traumatised, theyre in fear and theyre cold and theyre wet
and theyre hungry. We determined that people, they were living
outdoors in the foothills of the Himalayas ,although the sun was
shining by day , it would drop to below freezing at night, the
monsoon season was about to begin, so people were trying to keep
warm and protected from the elements in very, very poor, em
circumstances, so we needed to look at a package , we looked at
developing a kit very, very quickly that would have a shelter
component, that would have some basic what we call non-food item
components , food was not a major issue initially. People needed to
be able, as I say , take shelter from the elements and stay warm at
night.
Presenter:

The experts say it was fortunate the epicentre of both earthquakes

was over 100 kilometres from Kathmandu, so the capital was spared
catastrophic damage .. But that also meant the areas worst affected
were remote, hard to access and home to some of the poorest
people, in an already very poor country. With most of the media and
the first responders heading home, the complicated process of
delivering aid to this mountainous country was being organised.
Eddie Cranmer, a logistics expert with Concern fills me in on the
details of how humanitarian aid gets to where its needed in a
situation like this.

'Documentary On One - After the shock.' www.rte.ie/doconone

Eddie Cranmer: In the initial phases, very similar to a lot of our emergency response
, where the initial need was shelter kits. We hold emergency stock in
Dubai , in whats called the UNHRD , the humanitarian response
depot . The idea behind that is, obviously, to make things more timely
in terms of a response . Things would usually be dispatched within a
couple of days . So that would be through charter flights. So with
previous response like the earthquake in Haiti , Philipines typhoon,
even the cyclone in Myanmar that worked very well. The difficulty
here was, the airport in Kathmandu is actually a lot smaller , so due to
a lot of congestion in the original , kind of , first days it wasnt
possible and there was also a lot of regulations that we had to adhere
to , so there was landing permits we had to obtain. Because we
didnt want to delay any further , we basically kind of re-strategised
our approach and we decided to truck material in from Delhi and
Mumbai . We then sent maybe twenty to thirty truck loads of these
shelter kits. The difficulties from a logistics point of view that you face
then , is that the trucks coming are Indian trucks , and again due to
tight regulations and customs clearance procedures at the border ,
they actually have to be , the goods have to be transferred then on to
Nepalese trucks. So from our point of view,we had a staff member
based down there and again we would do that in a lot of emergency
responses just to ensure that the goods do get across and facilitate
the proper clearance . So once that was done , we then transferred
the goods to Nepalese trucks. So in total , together with our partners
we distributed 14,000 of these shelter kits.
16:12
Presenter:

Soon after the initial earthquake .Medcin San Frontiers established a

rehabilitation clinic at the Kathmandu orthopaedic hospital , Gorsha
Nowacka a physiotherapist from Poland , is showing me around.

Gorsha Nowacka: Everything is really related to the trauma, so its fracture, fracture,
fracture, fracture.. Vertebrae fracture with the neurological
complication, and without neurological complication. A lot of lower
limb fracture some upper limb fracture, a lot of pelvic fracture.

'Documentary On One - After the shock.' www.rte.ie/doconone

Presenter:

And these would have been people in situations where the houses
literally came down on them ?.

Gorsha Nowacka: Some of them, the people explained, some of them they jumped
from the first or second floor which can provoke a lot of pelvic
fracture, vertebra fracture . Some of them they were in rubble in the
houses so the situation one by one is a bit different , eh, but yes, all of
them related to the earthquake , jump try to escape or rubble in the
buildings.
17:12
Presenter:

The patients are accommodated in tents which fill up the hospital

grounds . Im taken to meet Binu Prassa , shes just one of over 18,000
people injured. Shes upset , but wants to tell her story

Binu Prassa: Speaks in Nepali

Interpreter:

Shes saying she was walking with her two daughters , when the wall
behind them collapsed she lost both of her daughters.Both of her
daughters were buried under the wall and she was just hit by bricks
and later when she was shouting for help and one of the stranger
came and cleared that wall.

Presenter:

Binu lost both of her daughters in the same wall collapse that cause
her injuries . Nepal is full of stories of these survivors who have lost
home and family.

Binu Prassa: Speaks in Nepali

Interpreter:

Her home was also destroyed because of the earthquake , she has
one son as well .Hes staying in his friends house . She is saying that
after she gets treatment from here, after the rehabilitation is
complete , she will ask for help from some of her friends and will go
and stay in their place. And also her husband , hes not able to work
because he has also lost his children . Now shes planning that they
will find some work and they will start living a normal life

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Binu Prassa: Speaks in Nepali

Presenter :

The problem with many of the recovering patients is that they cant
simply take a wheelchair , or crutches and go home ..Nepal , like
much of the developing world , is far from wheelchair or even crutch
friendly .

19:20
Gorsha Nowacka: People recovering very well, and they are, most of the patients,
they are people from the countryside so strong people and tough
people , eh. But here at the same time, the conditions after the
discharge is not the same condition that we have for example in
Europe. In Europe, okay you can be discharged from the hospital , you
can be followed in an outpatient department , you have the
transportation, you have the ambulance , you have the good roads .
Here if the people they are discharged, they are coming back now to
nowhere, because most of them they lost their houses ,so they are
living in the camps under the plastic sheeting in really temporary
shelter . So we try to provide them with more follow up, lets say than
in usual conditions ,really to give them as much autonomy as we
can. So for example , I would say in a usual situation you can
discharge somebody who has both legs fractured and hes still moving
on the wheelchair and he will just start walking in two weeks and you
can discharge him. Here we keep the patient just really to, to start
working with them to provide them all the functional gait training so
how to walk on the steps , how to walk over the obstacles .
Presenter:

Oh because the villages wouldnt be wheelchair friendly , so you cant

let somebody go in a wheelchair ?

Gorsha Nowacka: They are absolutely not wheelchair friendly. and ,I think even
here , even in Kathmandu , if you see the buildings there are a lot of
steps and if you see the roads, there is nothing wheelchair friendly
and even crutches friendly , not so many . So they have to be really
really independent .

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Presenter:

The MSF clinic benefitted from an advancement in materials

technology , a new high insulation material used in one of the tents
allows for much more efficient cooling in the hot conditions ..

Gorsha Nowacka: We here we made a trial for one, call it design shelter which is just
improved shelter, improved tents. The improvement, Its mostly for
the protection from the heat because, you can imagine that most of
the field hospital, the biggest problem is the temperature and the
rain. For the rain, difficult to manage, for the temperature sometimes
you can manage. So for example here we set up one of the tents with
better protection and better insulation and yes, it was a good test,
and absolutely in this time it was not so hot as in the other tents. At
the same time when the water comes we have the same problem in
all of the tents.
Presenter:

And of course the rain doesnt come in the top of the tent , it comes
in underneath.

Gorsha Nowacka: Exactlyexactly ..

Music:
Presenter:

Much of the devastation cause by the earthquakes in April and May

happened in the rural mountainous valleys of Nepal .. thats where
im headed to see the damage up close..( Fx Car doors) one of the
big problems with the humanitarian response is access. the country is
after all home to the worlds greatest mountain range and many of the
worlds highest peaks are found in the majestic Himalayas. Much of
Nepals population are living above 2,000 metres in areas with little or
no road access and long distances are covered on foot..

22:30
FX:

Sounds of truck.

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12

Presenter:

So were trying to pass a truck at the moment on a narrow mountain

road, maybe 12 or 14 feet (3.5-4.2 metres) across and the truck is
ahead of us and theres a bus coming towards us and the drop off to
one side is... literally hundreds of metres, but somehow both of them
can get past .the bus is coming past us now , and then were going
to attempt to pass the truck out . As I look down into the valley, I can
see right along the valley these little piles of rubble, where houses
used to stand. In places people are clearing them, sorting through the
rubble, taking out the corrugated iron, the re-enforcing bars, bits of
timber, sorting them all to one side hoping to rebuild were just
passing the truck nowand were past , and this process will be
repeated every ten or fifteen minutes or so as we head up the
mountain on these narrow roads. In places landslides have taken the
road out and between the Nepalese army and locals, theyve been
rebuilding the roads to make them accessible. Were still about two
or three hours from where were going and Im told that the road is
going to get worse, the landslides are more frequent and the
destruction is more complete as we go up into the Himalayas.

FX :

River.

Presenter:

Ive come to a small town on the Tamokoshi river to meet Alastair

Taylor from Concern ( Irish development NGO) ..

Alastair Taylor: Well its quite a devastating view with houses knocked down, half
knocked down. We can see in the background where there was a
huge landslide came down the hill as a result of the earthquake and it
basically smashed through a village killing a number of people and as
well as the landslide knocking the houses down , the earthquake in
itself knocked the houses down. The houses are traditional, either
built from wood which tended to survive a little bit better , or stones,
but with no cement, just the local stones bound together with soil.
The shaking of the ground made them fall and you just see the
devastation in front of us , you know you can see, its almost a movie
scene , you see the front of the house, with the back all missing , like
some spaghetti western sort of stage set .but its just terrible.

'Documentary On One - After the shock.' www.rte.ie/doconone

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