This post is part of a series called 2015 Nepal Earthquake Journals Guest Blog by Sabine Kast KATHMANDU, Nepal–It’s 1AM. Dogs are barking outside. I am super tired. Four weeks ago, in the wee hours of a Haitian Saturday morning while I was fending off insects and obsessively trying to get through the last pages of my book, an earthquake struck Nepal. My phone lit up with the news, and a ping notified me of an email, which read: “This is a big one. Are you ready?” It was from Kit. Ten days later, I was one-way flight to Kathmandu.…

This post is part of a series called 2015 Nepal Earthquake Journals KATHMANDU, Nepal–We are driving fast through burning roadblocks. People are upset and demonstrating.  Food and water has not reached this remote part of country yet. It is one of the least developed districts in Nepal. When one of the roadblocks forces us to stop, one of protesters approaches me to apologize. “I am so sorry to stop the traffic. But we are making a statement to the government. We need food, water and tents as soon as possible.”  Then he invited me to his camp, to share his…

This post is part of a series called 2015 Nepal Earthquake Journals KATHMANDU, Nepal–I am sleeping average of 2.5 hours for the last four days.  We start early and end super late. Then people in the U.S. wake up and there are daily Skype interviews and reports to write until after midnight.  It’s a battlefield of adrenaline.  I don’t feel much fatigue. From 7:35 and on we spend all morning with meetings. The whole country seems to know about our presence.  The Nepal Engineering Association initiated damage assessment with its 400 volunteer members. They need technical and funding support.  Our…

This post is part of a series called 2015 Nepal Earthquake Journals Kathmandu, Nepal – April 29, 2015 10:35 am Our assessment team in Nepal so far is me, Sandeep and Manis. Sandeep Shah is from our Miyamoto India office and Manis is our Nepalese structural engineer partner.  He ran one of the largest companies with 30 people in Kathmandu. Manis drives a little red Honda through the city.  The town is empty and all the stores are closed with not much action.  The apartments above the stores are all vacant.  The population essentially fled the town for fear of…

This post is part of a series called 2015 Nepal Earthquake Journals KATHMANDU, Nepal–After 30 hours of flight over Afghanistan and Iran, my plane was put on hold over Kathmandu airport. I was sitting next to a BBC producer and she told me she’s been in the air for the past three days trying to get to here. She was turned back twice because the airport was shut down. I met up with Sandeep Shah, who heads our India office, at the crowded airport, where international rescue crews and police units gathered everywhere making plans. I told everyone on our…

This post is part of a series called Miyamoto in Haiti Jon Buckley, a 32-year-old project engineer in our San Diego office, used his vacation and paid his own way to volunteer in Haiti for the firm’s nonprofit, Miyamoto Global Disaster Relief.  Read his guest journal about his adventures – like eating BBQ goat, learning a few phrases in French and Creole and seeing the damage from a major earthquake for the first time in person. The highlight, though, was working on Miyamoto Relief’s newest project, the retrofit of a dangerous, 4,000-student school in the heart of Port-au-Prince. February 2,…