Businesses that were housed in concrete structures were mostly able to mop up and continue trading but having said that, far too many Nepalese locals are now jobless due to loss of trade and the resulting economic downturn.
Generation Fire provided large donations around the time the first earthquake struck.
Brian Williams of Nepal's Agape Ministries and Bipin Dhungana our Generation Fire leader for Kathmandu used these donations to provide much needed life saving food parcels to those who lost everything and who had no means of support.
Quantities of building materials were also purchased and Brian's team went into the mountain top villages that aid agencies had not gone to to construct metal and bamboo homes also church buildings and toilets for the most desperate homeless at the same time much welcome food and sanitary parcels were distributed to these locals and were well received by all.
Most of the homes that fared worse were those that were built out of local stone or mud bricks which were bonded together with well, just mud!
Families, friends and neighbors were seen to rally together to help each other to rebuild these structures unfortunately they were rebuilding using the same building techniques as has has been done in the past. With no wire ties to lock or tie walls together or any concrete. The use of leveling tools was not evident either.
Due to lack of government assistance or available funding recovery is a slow ongoing process. The local businesses who suffered structural damage to their premises and stock losses sadly had no or insufficient insurance and were forced to lay off workers. The economy is slowly turning over but it has been reported that Nepal has gone back 10 years in development as a result.
