Amateur Radio Buffs’ Quest to Connect Quake-Ravaged Nepal

Photos: Tribuhvan University

In the pre-dawn hours of April 25, when my phone buzzed “Q Q Q” — the code I had set to notify me when the USGS Earthquake Notification Service registers a quake above a certain seismic level — I had to check and re-check to make sure it was right: a 7.8 Mw earthquake had struck Nepal only 48 miles northwest of Kathmandu. Still, it wasn’t completely unexpected. I serve as strategic advisor to Radio Mala, an organization that has been working for five years to bring amateur radio to Nepal in preparation for just such an event. This earthquake was not an “if,” but a “when.”

The area known as the Kathmandu Valley experiences massive earthquakes about every 70 to 80 years, and the last major quake (estimated to have been 8.0 Mw) occurred in 1934. Seismologists’ predictions were only a year off for this quake. The April 2015 Nepal earthquake was devastating due to its intensity, proximity to densely populated areas, and large aftershocks….

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