Four days after a huge 7.8-magnitude earthquake shook Nepal, the ordeal is far from over. There have been close to 100 aftershocks. The death toll, at the time of writing, has risen above 5,000. As news arrives of even greater destruction outside Kathmandu, that figure is expected to rise. People are buried beneath the rubble of collapsed buildings, waiting to be rescued. Many thousands have been stranded outside, battling cold and rain, without food, water or medicine.
I wish I could say this tragedy could not have been predicted – that it was something we could not have prepared for. Yet for decades experts have been warning that a major earthquake could devastate Nepal. The country sits in a zone of high seismic activity. Catastrophic earthquakes occur here every 70 to 80 years; the last one was in 1934.
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