Patan (Lalitpur), April 25: Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak has said we should not invite risk ourselves by damaging nature. At a programme ‘Lalitpur Metropolitian City Resilience Fair’ organized by Lalitpur Metropolis at Patan Durbar area today on the occasion of 10th memorial day of Gorkha earthquake, Home Minister Lekhak recalled the disaster and loss of lives and property caused by it, stressing the need of carrying out activities carefully to reduce risk caused by disaster like earthquake in coming days.
“Our physical structures should be strong. We should save the nature. We should make preparation to avoid risk in future remembering the pain and sorrow faced in past”, he mentioned. The Home Minister lauded the exemplary works carried out by Lalitpur metropolis in post-disaster reconstruction, search, rescue and relief tasks.
“We received much support from donor agencies in reconstruction task. We are at risky area. We can predict landslide and flood but cannot forecast earthquake. So we should stay on ready position thinking earthquake may occur anytime”, he stated.
The Home Minister opined that the role of media is significant in disaster.
Similarly, Mayor of Lalitpur metropolis, Chiri Babu Maharjan, claimed that Lalitpur metropolitan city is outstanding in disaster management task. “We have made arrangement of all equipment required during disaster. The metropolis will provide service within four minute of the disaster”, he mentioned. Stating that disaster damaged many temples in Patan Durbar area, he shared that most of the temples were reconstructed.
Senior Vice-President of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Hara Shohei, pointed out the need of preparation and strong unity to carry out activities in speedy manner during disaster. The Support that Japanese government and JICA has been providing to Nepal and Nepali people would be continued, added the senior vice-president.
Mentioning that the geographical condition of Nepal and Japan is same, he stressed the need of making physical infrastructure quake-resilient.
Likewise, Japanese Ambassador to Nepal, Maeda Toru, thanked the Lalitpur metropolis for organizing progranmme to spread awareness in order to stay safe in disaster by correcting past weaknesses.
He laid emphasis on the need of making bilateral relation between Nepal and Japan further effective.
Deputy-Mayor of Lalitpur metropolis, Anjali Shakya Bajracharya, said the programme was organized to express commitment in order to follow rules of nature and spread a message to stay alert.
