Nepal, one of the threatened and vulnerable country to earthquake. It is said that in the interval of 100 years, Nepal will be hit by massive earthquake. Since, it has already been 80 years since the last major earthquake. Nepal Red Cross Society (NRCS) and other organizations are gearing up to provide prevention training to minimize damages. With this objective Nepal Red Cross Society has been organizing various programs in different communities and wards. In ward number 18 where my resident also lies, NRCS has organized the Earthquake preparedness for Safer Communities (EPS) Program that held from 27 to 29 January 2014 from 10 am to 5 pm. This ward was selected as from the field survey,  the volunteers of the NRCS found that the area is very  vulnerable to earthquake disaster as the most buildings are very traditional and old, number of senior citizen are high, the out migrants are high, 75% of people are service holders and the most populated ward among 22 ward in Lalitpur said Sornima Shakya ( Assistant Program Coordinator)

I, myself could not attended the training program due to my board exam and what a coincident I attended Semester end exam of  Subject Disaster  and Risk Assessment Technique on the same training day. Because of my subjective background I could not stay way from the program highlights and practical activities.  So I talked with my Childhood Friend Malika Bajracharya and Assistant  Program Coordinator Sornima Shakya about the program.

So I asked my friend to share her experience and activities held during the program.

The replied, The organizer of the program is Nepal Red Cross Society (NRCS). The objective of the program was Community Action for Disaster Response. This was coordinated by Roshana Byanjankar assisted by Dil Bahadur Thapa, Sujit Gautam, Shiva Laxmi Nemaphuki, Junu Dangol, Nilima Maharjan, and Sonima Shakya.Here on 1^st day we learned about ?Recurring accidents and Community Rescuers Group? under which we learn about different disasters like Natural disaster, Health hazard, Biological hazard, Political disaster, Technical disaster. We also learned about Community rescuers role, Responsibilities & limitations and the creation of community rescuers group. At the same time in Second Session of the day ?Preparedness for family safety and response?. In this chapter we knew how to prepare ?Go Bag?, Pre- identify the work flow after a disaster through prior discussion with the family members.

On Second Day, we learned about ?First- Aid and Basic Life Safety? and learned how to help choking person, control bleeding, secure broken bones with available supportive materials and to take care of an unconscious person practically with the tool kits. Likewise, we learned about taking care of a person in shock. We also performed patient assessment & learned about ?DOTS?(Deformity, Open Wounds, Tenderness, pain upon touching and Swelling). Then we started our lesson on ?Incident Command System and Triage?. We practiced categorizing victims under red zone, green zone and no tags. In red zone, victims with severe damage such as broken bone, unconscious, excessively bleeding are kept. In green zone, victims with minor injuries or no injuries are kept. Whereas, the dead bodies are categorized as no tags.

After practicing categorizing we learn about ?Management of dead bodies?. First of all photos are take of the dead bodies. Then the dead bodies are taken to designated place in a corpse van. We learn that dead bodies are not buried deep, in case the family come looking for their members.. Hence, we bury them five feet deep to preserve the bodies. We also treat a single isolated part of dead body as a whole dead body and treat the same.

On final Day of training we learn about ?Fire Disaster?. Here we are trained to use different fire extinguisher. We learned about ?PASS? which is pull the pin, aim at the flame, squeeze the lever,  sweep the flame. We also learned about the ?Bucket brigade?.Likewise, we also learn about ?Basic Search and Rescue?. Here we were trained at three phases about search and rescue, where we learned about safe method of conducting search and rescue, load lifting, factors in structural triage and different types of lever.In the end, we did a final practical exercise where we learned about ?CQRST? which means Community Quick Response Sorting Technique. We did a stimulation of immediate post earthquake period in which we made use of lessons we learnt in this program and secured a disaster area.In concluding phase, of the program we cleared our queries and provided feedback for improvement of the program.

Secretary of NRCS- ?Baburaja Maharjan?, President of NRCS- ?Devendra Bahadur Pradhan? were invited to attend the certificate distribution ceremony. Certificate of participation was distributed among the members.

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