Disasters and Development- Investing in Sustainable Development of Nepal

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Preface Natural disasters have killed hundreds of thousand people in less than a decade since 2000. which probably is the worst number in the history of natural disasters in the world Especially the earthquakes and earthquake-induced disasters such as tsunamis and landslides have been devastating that the number of people killed in the last 10 years in earthquaker and carthquake-induced disasters stands at more than 80% of the total number of fatal loss in the whole world. The Indian Ocean nunami, that mainly hit the Aceh Province of Indonesia for example, sock more than 200.000 lives alone. The recent earthquake of 1tai Unary 2010) Lolled nearly 230,000 people (government report), and the 2008 Earthquake of China (Sichuan Prosince. May 2008) killed more than 30,000 people. Likewise, the 2001 earthquake of India (Gujarat, January 2001) took more than 20,000 human lives, and in just four years another earthquake hit the region in October 2005 resulting in death of nearly 30,000 Pakistanis In December 2003, the Iranian earthquake killed 15.000 people while many major fa earthquakes but with comparatively less number of casualties have ha various regions in the last one decade, such as Turkey (March 2010), Chile (February 2010), Japan (October 2004 June 2008), Papua New Guines (April, July, August 2010), China (April 2010), Indonesia (March) 2005 May 2006 July 2007September 2009, April 2010, etc.), etc. All these data indicate that the earthquake and earthquake-related disasters in the beginning of the 21" Century have been the worst natural disasters in the history, at least in terms of human camalty. Besides, this disastrous decade has also been the worst time in terms of the loss of infrastructure and personal properties.

Not only in earthquake-related disasters but a great number of human casualty together with massive property loss has been also reported in water-related and water-induced disasters. For example, the Hurricane Katrina that hit a large part of America in the periphery of the Gulf of Mexico in August 2005 including the deadliest flooding of New Orleans, Louisiana caused an estimated total of $1 billion US dollars of economic loss and killed nearly 2,000 people Recently in China, about 1,000 people died and about 500 were missing in flood disaster of July 2010 in Sichuan Province. Likewise, in 2007, the South Asian floods affecting India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan killed nearly 2,000 people and displaced more than 20 million people in the area. As a water-induced disaster, except for the case of earthquake being the inducing factor, landslides also result in heavy economic loss. Unlike earthquakes, landslides and floods are more frequent but compared to mega earthquake disasters, the amount of loss and number of human casualty is often less. Japan, for example loses 10-20 people every years in water-related and water-induced disasters including landslides. All these natural disasters somehow directly affect the national economy, and especially when a developing or underdeveloped nation is hit hard by these disasters, whole development process is affected.

The fatal loss goes very high in the Himalayan Region too, mainly in earthquakes, landslides, and floods. Due to natural causes but more due to inadequate financial capacity and immature technical capability to reduce/prevent disasters, Nepal as a major part of the Himalayan Region loses about 300 people in average annually in landslides and flood-related disasters. On the other hand, the soon-to-hit earthquake of the magnitude of the Great 1934 Earthquake has been predicted to kill more than 40,000 people in Kathmandu Valley alone.

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