The DHL Disaster Response Team in Nepal in 2015

     As the two-year anniversary of the catastrophic earthquake that ravaged Nepal approaches, authorities are taking steps to improve preparedness for future disasters at two key Nepali airports. DHL leads the international effort to build up disaster resilience in the Himalayan country.

The ‘Perfect’ Disaster

      A 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck Nepal in April 2015, killing almost 9,000 people, injuring some 22,000, and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless. Multiple aftershocks—including a 7.3 quake on May 12—caused further damage in the weeks that followed.
      Your correspondent headed to KTM within days of the disaster to report on the humanitarian relief effort. It quickly became clear that the quakes had created the perfect logistics disaster due to Nepal’s mountainous terrain, stifling bureaucracy, and the closure of so many roads and mountain paths due to landslides.

Single Channel Woes

      Making matters worse, land-locked Nepal relies on shipping supplies arriving from ports in India—a journey that took 10-15 days in the weeks after the first shock. As a result, much of the initial emergency relief effort relied on the country’s main airport, Tribhuvan International Airport (KTM).

KTM Shortages

      Unfortunately, KTM was woefully unprepared to be the main gateway for an international relief operation. It had just nine parking stands and one runway and was also desperately short of equipment. The influx of emergency flights quickly damaged the sole runway, reducing the size of relief freighters that could be received and causing backlogs of loaded freighters to build up at major relief hub airports such as Delhi and Dubai.

DRT To The Rescue

      Your correspondent was reporting on the relief operation alongside DHL’s Disaster Response Team (DRT), headed by DHL Director for Humanitarian Affairs Chris Weeks. DRT teams draw on a network of more than 400 volunteers, all specially trained employees of Deutsche Post DHL Group (DPDHL), which also foots all the bills for their deployment in disasters.
      The Nepal DRT was assigned handling operations on a section of KTM’s apron. Organization and handling efficiency were quickly rescued from chaos despite the lack of suitable equipment.

DHL Shines Through

      For your correspondent, DRT’s efforts were an excellent illustration of the sort of valuable logistics support the world’s leading transport service providers can produce in emergency situations. Unfortunately, DHL was the lone representative of the logistics and air freight industry in Nepal.
      But not only did DHL aid the emergency operations for an extended period, last week the company sent Chris Weeks and his staff back to Nepal to lead meetings with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), airport authorities, representatives from the Home Ministry, the Nepal Army, and other humanitarian responders to assess and strengthen the post-disaster preparedness arrangements of Tribhuvan International Airport and Nepalgunj Airport.

Preparing For Future Quakes

      The four-day Get Airports Ready for Disaster (GARD) workshops were focused on ensuring the airports were prepared to quickly receive humanitarian teams and relief goods should another disaster strike. “Besides having the necessary infrastructure to smoothly deliver the lifesaving support to the affected communities, the team on site needs to be trained in the necessary protocols and know-how to handle the dramatic rise in air traffic and flow of goods and people following a natural disaster,” said DHL.
       “The 2015 earthquakes have shown that adequate level of infrastructure and effective logistical operations would not only save lives but help reduce economic loss.”

Airports Are Vital

      During the workshops, participants and trainers evaluated the current level of preparedness at the two airports, while DPDHL’s aviation experts and UNDP leaders helped equip participants with best-practice logistics management during natural disasters, devised customized disaster-response plans for both airports, and identified priorities for investment in national infrastructure that could further improve the resilience of emergency supply chains during a future disaster.
      “The 2015 quake truly demonstrated the crucial role airports play in Nepal’s national emergency response network,” said UNDP Resident Coordinator Valerie Julliand. “We just can't wait for another disaster to strike to have strong and effective contingency plans to manage the flow of emergency relief goods to the people in need. The GARD workshop is a key milestone in UNDP’s efforts to support the government in making Nepal a disaster-resilient country and the airports ready to implement immediate response actions in the event of a disaster.”

Valerie Retraces His Steps

      Back in Nepal once more, Weeks said a clear and flexible action plan could help airport operators minimize logistics bottlenecks and better manage sudden influxes of relief aid, bulky supplies like food, water and medical supplies, as well as NGO personnel entering the country. “Almost two years since we first went into Nepal in the earthquake’s aftermath, it’s especially heartening to see the government and airports considering preparedness as paramount, and incorporating it into action plans that could potentially save more lives in the future,” he added.
      Hopefully, the next time logistics expertise and resources are needed in an emergency situation, DHL will not be the lone industry representative.
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