Nepal earthquake: BCIT engineers fly out to help rebuild

A team of civil engineers from the British Columbia Institute of Technology flew to Nepal on Monday to help the country rebuild safely following the devastating earthquake earlier this year.

The seven engineers will be travelling to rural and urban areas from Kathmandu to look at which buildings survived the 7.8 magnitude earthquake in April, and which ones did not.

"We are trying to come up with simple guidelines.. the people in those rural areas, the carpenters, the masons can adopt," said Bishnu Pandey, who leads the team and teaches civil engineering at BCIT.

The engineers, all members of the Canadian Association for Earthquake Engineers, say there is always something to learn from earthquakes.

Mixed emotions

Pandey says in remote areas, people need ideas they can actually implement, like adding timber supports inside rebuilt stone structures.

Some of the damage that led to the most casualties, he says, was in rural areas where stone buildings simply collapsed.

The engineers plan to work with the Nepalese government and local engineering authorities to develop a plan for rebuilding and in urban Kathmandu, update the building code.

Some of Pandey's team members are excited to put their skills to use, but are also aware of the gravity of the situation.

"As a seismologist, [I'm] excited," said engineer Sheri Molnar. "But in a human interest way, I don't want to see what I'm about to see."