More Complete Reply
Hi Trythis,
I typed up a big response to you, with photos, when the whole thing disappeared before I could post it - TWICE!!!
Here goes my third try…At the moment, most of our efforts are focused on getting temporary shelter to the over 900 completely homeless households in the Dhuskun community. Experience has shown that tents and lean-tos made of tarpaulins simply blow away during the monsoon thunderstorms that have begun to hit with increasing frequency. We followed your lead on potential sources of Corrugated Galvanized Iron (CGI) sheets, as well as lighter plastic versions of corrugated roofing sheets, and we were offered a wonderful price by a company in Fushan, China, who wanted to help the victims of the earthquake disaster. However, The company in China did not want to take responsibility for shipping the roofing sheets into Nepal due to the chaotic conditions and damaged roadways there. In the end, after looking into shipping and weighing in the time needed for delivery as well as the cost, we decided to go with a local supplier of metal CGI sheets. (We will go with the Chinese supplier as soon as shipping becomes feasable. Maybe in the permanent shelter phase of recovery. We were able to purchase 60 bundles of 12 sheets, which is enough for about 60 shelters. Unfortunately, that leaves 800 families in the same community sitting under the sky in the heat and the thunderstorms. Here are photos of some of the people we have not yet been able to help.
In response to your suggestions about the more permanent housing methods for after the immediate crisis is over… we are still leaning heavily toward the Superadobe method, since it has already been successful at surviving the major earthquakes in Nepal, and involves extremely few building materials. Your point about field rock being their most abundant building resource gave me pause… Maybe it is difficult to dig up dirt that is not full of rocks there. More research is needed to make sure that such a dirt-rock mixture can be used in superadobe construction. The Tencate suggestion seems like a valuable lead.
We had tried to implement hexayurts after the Jure landslide disaster, but ran into the problem of complying with the stringent anti earthquake building regulations in Nepal. We had an engineer volunteering to modify the hexayurt design to make it earthquake-proof, but that did not go anywhere. Kind of ironic.
Anyway, in the meanwhile, people in the Dhuskun area of Sindhulpachok are getting food aid and some tarpaulins from a group of nonprofits.Unfortunately, the tarpaulins have been blowing away in the monsoon thunderstorms. Madhav has been helping to distribute the aid. Here are two photos from that endeavor.
Today, a group of Nepali nonprofits have assembled with the CGI sheets from Communtiy Service of Nepal and 100 building experts, to take the CGI sheets and incorporate them into shelter for the chosen 60 families of the community. Photos will follow. That does, however, leave 800 families without shelter.
If you would like to help us provide the CGI sheets needed to make durable temporary shelters for these people, please send your donations directly to the Community Service of Nepal bank account in Nepal. Here is the information:
Sunrise Bank Limited, Taukhel, Godavari, Lalitpur, Nepal,
Account name: Community Service of Nepal,
Account number: 03610275443011
ANY HELP WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED!
The big new problem we are encountering is that our source of donations from the USA has completely dried up since the Nepal earthquake is no longer anywhere on the news. Any help or ideas with fundraising would be a great help at this time. I sent emails to the Boards of Directors of the steel manufacturers, highlighting the pr angle. We are writing letters to celebrities, governments, businesses, anyone we can think of, but so far no offers of help have come in, except for the roofing manufacturer in Fushan, China. I was not even able to get a quote from DHL on shipping the roofing materials into Nepal, however. I have learned from past experience that there are only a few companies that can ship reliably into Nepal. I sent Madhav a camera last year, and it disappeared out of the mail service before it got there.
