The epicenter was near Sikkim about 20 km underground, 272 km from Kathmandu. However, it was strongly felt in Kathmandu. A wall on the British embassy in Kathmandu collapsed killing 3 people and smashing a car. Next morning we got news from all around that several more people had died and many more wounded. Several houses were destroyed and many more damaged.

Effect on Internet usage

NPIX usages graph showed a big dip during 18:25 NST. Looks like all ISPs and International gateways saw similar trend. Most people went outside to the street and the power went off for a few minutes, and that could also have disconnected several computers and Internet connections.

We were hoping this would be the only effect of the quake but we started getting news of injuries and death.

Be Prepared

Nepal lies in an active fault line that gave birth to the Himalayas. Kathmandu valley saw tremendous growth in the past few years with brick and concrete building occupying every inch of Kathmandu leaving very little room anything else.

With so much brick being used and sub-standard constructions, the future for valley is worrying. Hope this earthquake reminds people that it is time we start preparing and building safely.

More at: USGS website

Managed to get some shots of Pashupati area from the south side. Sorry about the quality as I did not have my usual camera with me.

Thursday evening’s brief fire on a pole was much more severe than I would have imagined. It severed dozens of fiber and other cables. It took the ISPs whole night plus the following day to fix the mess.

If you’ve noticed the way the cables are pulled across the city, it won’t take you much to realize that its very unsafe and not surprising that fires are more frequent.

Fibers, PSTN, ethernet, custom (ethernet+DC, ethernet+AC etc) and a mix of power lines run through the same poles and they run in parallel. On top of that, power cables and non-power cables are often just millimeter apart, sometimes even tangled with each other. Some broken power wires are loosely joined. Sometimes no tapes are used to insulate the joints.

Why is the cabling the way it is? Because most of the time cabling is done by unskilled, untrained people lacking any knowledge of electricity safety or codes. ISPs employ teams of pole climbers and ladder carryboys. Their engineers barely work on field or monitor their work. The cabling ends up being messy, loosely hanging above pedestrian’s head.

When khatey-children burn some fire below on the cold winter night, the cables catches it quickly. Or, when the dew settles on the dusts above the wire and gets to the loose joints, it causes short circuit and sparks a fire. There could be dozens of other possibilities.

Here’s some picture during the repairs. But notice the laying of cables. If you start looking outside your window while you drive across town, you’ll see more like these.

If the ISPs learn from this, they should really think about redoing the cabling. Its prime time to start practicing proper safety codes and practices.

Happy New Year 2010 to everyone!