HCT Meeting, 28/4, 2pm, UN House
1. Briefing (Jamie):
 Latest figures: 4,349 deaths and 8,517 injuries, Sindhupalchowk, KTM, Nuwakot, Dhading, Kavrepalanchowk,
Gorkha, most affected
 Yesterday (27/4) afternoon there was an earthquake in the East of the country (epicentre at Mirik), no
information on impact of this quake yet
 Aftershocks continue, but none since this morning (as of 3:30pm)
 There are rumors circulating about the death toll. This seems to come from statement from Prime minister
and all agencies are advised to avoid discussing this number
 Jamie travelled on a helicopter flight with the Nepal military this morning, went to Dhulikel and
Sindhupalchowk, was very impressed with the medical response in Dhulikel, 834 injuries had come in in the
last 48 hours, 54 large operations have been conducted (even through earthquakes / aftershocks),
cooperation between the military, local authorities, and civil society is good, however relief supplies are not
getting out from KTM. 1,000 tarps have been received in Dhulikel from the GoN, and 500 tents from the
NRCS. The helicopter flight also highlighted the scattered nature of the damage to buildings and that
accessibility to the affected areas is going to be a challenge. Agencies are not encouraged to send tents to
these areas, better to send tarps with possible follow up of shelter kit
 The need to plan and manage camps well was again highlighted in order to ensure that they do not become
permanent fixtures
 It was also emphasized that the response needs to get out of the valley and assistance needs to be delivered,
not just assessments
2. Cluster and Inter-Cluster Meeting
 Clusters are all meeting. Regular times have been set and are available at the UN information booth and
www.humanitarianresponse.info/operations/Nepal
 Daily inter-cluster meeting for cluster co-leads and agency heads, will normally be at 3pm at the UN.
Objective of the meeting is to get an appropriate balance between assessments / planning and action, and
between KTM Valley and outside of the valley
3. 3 minute each updates from clusters:
 WASH: 10am meeting each day at DWSS, more than 60 members in cluster, 3W complete, response is slow
but now moving, assessment teams are already in the field and lead agencies have been identified for all
districts, currently working from temporary estimates, have provided temporary toilets in Dhulikel camp,
there is an MoU in place with the tankers association for the provision of water and tankers of water are
already arriving at camps (only in KTM valley), WASH kits are being delivered to 800 families in Sinamangal
today, lots of international assistance being provided, struggling due to limited warehousing, Irish
Government have sent soap (fair play to them!).
 Health: Meeting daily at 11am at the Ministry, GoN doing great job on coordination, 13 foreign medical
teams in country, and all other foreign teams have been put on standby, most teams are in KTM, and 4 are
outside. Key needs are tents and medicines. According to initial information 4 District Hospitals have been
damaged and 50 Health Posts have been damaged (beyond use). There is little support arriving outside of
the KTM valley. 14 GoN teams have been deployed to conduct a rapid assessment outside of the valley. 3 x
medical doctors coming from IOM to look at psycho social, health, and sanitation.
 Food: concentrating outside of the KTM valley, some problems in Sindhupalchowk whilst doing assessments
(WFP) as local people were annoyed at the perceived lack of action. Highlights the need to not just carry out
assessments, but to make sure that action happens in parallel with rapid assessments. WFP estimates that
20,000 M tonnes of food will be required per month (based on rough figure of 1.4 million affected
population), some partners (Oxfam) have already requested to join rapid assessments, which need to be
coordinated, but avoiding convoys of multiple agency vehicles. Cluster is meeting daily at the airport at
10am. WFP are bringing 30M tonnes of energy biscuits from Dubai and there is potential to bring in fortified
food. WFP highlighted that the next planting season is in 2 months, and that it is essential to get people back
to their homes and land so that they can plant. The possibilities for cash transfers was briefly discussed, but
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this is dependent on the markets being open in the districts – currently there is no information on this. WFP
rapid needs assessments will consider impact on local markets. Health cluster raised issue that many
hospitals have run out of food, they are normally supplied by the GoN, but the stocks are not available at the
moment. The Nepal Food Corporation were not present at the cluster meeting today, WFP hoping they will
attend tomorrow.
Nutrition: assessment teams have been formed and will travel to 16 districts tomorrow following an
orientation tomorrow morning, the need for these assessments was questioned as district demographic
profiles already exist based on which estimates of requirements can be prepared. Incidents of distributions
being mobbed in Sindhupalchowk, and a truck with materials being robbed on the way to Sindhupalchowk
were raised and it was again stressed that districts should not be over assessed with multiple different
agencies and clusters carrying out separate assessments without any action taking place in parallel. WFP and
NRCS will be distributing food in Gorkha on 29/4 and Dhading on the 30/4. There are no critical needs in
terms of malnutrition / supplementary feeding at the moment but may arise in 15-20 days. ACF are planning
to train people on managing and treating severe malnutrition.
Protection: Child friendly spaces being set up from Thursday which will also be used as temporary learning
centers and will also act as protection hubs offering psychosocial support, 5 teams with 3 members are being
mobilized tomorrow, key messages will be relayed through FM stations from tomorrow. Save the Children
are distributing baby kits. UNICEF are doing assessments in Dhading and Gorkha, urgent need for children’s
clothes distributing from tomorrow. Meeting 10:30am daily at Dept. of Women and Children. A GBV subcluster has been set up.
Education: DoE leading well, working with DEOs (DEOs also need to feed info to NEOC), 90% of schools
damaged according to initial DEO estimates, this equates to ~5,000 schools. Cluster partners have been
deployed to 11 most affected districts.
Early Recovery: Getting feedback from assessments carried out in 12 districts through UNDP project staff
already in the field. 4 key clusters to work closely with are food security, shelter, logs, and CCCM. Key to
priorities debris removal and determine where, if anywhere, road blockages need to be cleared. MoFALD has
apparently activated a large master plan for debris removal. Ministry of finance met separately with ADB and
WB yesterday, UN+WB+EU meeting tomorrow to discuss PDNA
Logistics: There is some helicopter capacity through WFP, will be based in KTM and Pokhara, will set up 2
staging areas, most likely outside of KTM, to serve areas with no / limited road access. Problems continue
with blockages at the airport, Indian army are currently using all additional space at the airport, max. weight
plane that can land is 190 M tonnes, there are some concerns regarding the stock of fuel at the airport. The
landslide at Birgunj has been cleared so road access to India is possible. HSA at airport is functioning well and
mobile storage units are available. 6 MI8’s are currently in country from the Indian Army, max capacity of 2
tonnes, Pokhara airport can be used (max Hercules plane), fuel at the district airports is also a concern. WFP
will have hubs at Nepalgunj and Birgunj. WFP will charter two helicopters in the valley. Next logs cluster
meeting will be 30/4.
Shelter: IFRC shelter coordinator arrived yesterday, 8,000 tarps distributed so far, 25,000 tarps ready to be
distributed / in process of being distributed. Meetings will take place at DUDBC offices daily, 10am shelter
cluster, 11am taskforce (DDG DUDBC, IoM, IFRC, UN Habitat), 11:30am CCCM cluster. Damage assessments
are critical but shelter cluster does not have this capacity but will link in with this / coordinate. Need to
address system of distribution in remote areas, maybe need people to collect from one central place instead
of trying to airlift with very limited helicopter capacity. Some NFIs are being delivered, challenging in
Sindhupalchowk. IDP camps require support, especially with monsoon approaching. Tents not advised,
based on experiences in Haiti. If tents are sent they must be complete and winterized / have potential to be
winterized.
CCCM: still collecting information and numbers on camp populations, info should be available soon, IoM
reliant on partners, sites need dedicated site management, IoM reaching out to 30 GoN staff that were
trained last year on CCCM. There are many more than 16 camps, so need to look beyond these also.
Registration won’t take place until people with homes still standing / undamaged return home.
4. Flash Appeal:
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RCO/OCHA consolidating all cluster inputs.
Draft Appeal will be sent tonight to HCT for comments by 10am on Wednesday.
The following has been submitted. Discuss downward revision of ball park figures.
CLUSTER
REQUESTED AMOUNT
(US$ million)
Food
124
Health
75
WASH
63
Nutrition
8.8
Logs
31.7
ETC
2.45
Education
20
Protection (Child Protection 11
and GBV)
Shelter
Early Recover
8
TOTAL
343.95
SUGGESTED AMOUNT
Next steps:
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Appeal Launch on Wednesday, 29 April in the afternoon in Kathmandu at the UNDP Conference Room. At
the same time, the Appeal will be launched in Geneva.
Over the coming days, OCHA will work with cluster leads on including projects in the Appeal.
Overall Appeal revision is 4 to 6 weeks.
5. CERF:
 The ERC announced allocation of US$15 million.
CLUSTER
Food
Shelter
Health
WASH
Logistics
Protection (Child P and GBV)
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REQUESTED AMOUNT
(US$ million)
3
3.5
2.5
3.5
2
0.5
Clusters are requested to submit their project proposals by CoB today (28 April)
OCHA/RCO is working on the CERF chapeau document.
The idea is to clear the projects as soon as possible. OCHA is in contact with CERF Secretariat to allow
maximum flexibility in terms of budget and activities.
6. Sit Reps:
 Will be published at around 7pm today
 Information for the sit reps needs to be sent by 16:00 daily, template has already been shared with all
cluster leads
7. General Information:
 List of websites where information can be found is available at the UNIC booth at the entrance to UN house.
At www.humanitarianresponse.info/operation/nepal all sitreps, meeting calendar, all contact details of
agency heads/cluster leads and humanitarian workers, maps and infographics, plus others can be found.
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Minutes of this meeting will be published on www.humanitarianresponse.info/operation/nepal website and
will be tweeted but no longer shared by email.
08:30 Daily Orientation Briefing for all new arrivals, meet at UN Lobby, depending on numbers will assign
location. This is considered to be very important for new arrivals and donors and clusters should encourage
attendance. It will provide a briefing on the country, operational space issues, socio-cultural and local
political issues.
Clusters to establish and maintain the same time for meetings, ensure cluster leads populate agenda notes
on www.humanitarianresponse.info/operations/Nepal. Clusters are encouraged to hold their meetings in
the mornings.
14:00 Daily HCT+ meeting, the Heads of the cluster lead agencies, AIN senior representative (responsible for
feeding back to NGOs), NSET, key donors. This is the key decision-making group.
3pm daily inter-cluster coordination meeting
17:00 general coordination meeting, anyone that wants to come, only for next 48 hours, then will review
how to proceed
8. AoB:
 NSET have been receiving many offers of support and many requests for support at district level, want to
coordinate directly with UN to understand how to deal with these correctly. NSET will continue to participate
in the HCT as a national NGO representative.
 SAR: major ops going on, tasking work quickly, am and pm meetings at military base at airport, sufficient SAR
capacity in country, may be able to assist with damage assessments. Dutch SAR team now working outside
of the KTM Valley.
 ECHO will have a partners meeting tomorrow at the EU Delegation at 11:30am to discuss funding
opportunities, all donors advised to have similar planning and resource allocation meetings
 ACAPS now in country, have already prepared three briefing notes. Will make more accessible and update
every 2 days. Sourcing information and summarizing lessons learned from previous emergency responses.
Will work in support of RCO/OCHA in updating and upgrading pre-crisis profiles of affected districts.
 BBC Media Action have started lifeline radio programme, daily and heard by all, need key messages from all
actors in response