Nepal marked the fifth anniversary of the 2015 Gorkha earthquake on Saturday with officials taking stock of remaining reconstruction works even as Prime Minister K P Oli blamed the novel coronavirus outbreak for delaying restoration efforts.
An earthquake measuring 7.8 hit Nepal's Gorkha district on April 25, 2015. It claimed over 9,000 lives and damaged around 5,00,000 buildings.
Marking the occasion, the Nepal Reconstruction Authority (NRA) organised an online interaction between representatives of donor agencies, reconstruction experts and government officials.
The aim of the web conference was to make the process of reconstruction effective and institutionalise the learnings from it, the NRA said in a statement.
Chief Executive Officer of NRA Sushil Gyawali said the authority will work closely with local-level and provincial governments for minimising disaster risks and its effective management.
Gyawali said the ongoing reconstruction works have been affected by the global COVID-19 outbreak but 80 per cent of reconstruction of houses was completed.
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The 17th century pond Rani Pokhari in Kathmandu is among the incomplete restorations projects.
In a statement on Friday, Prime Minister Oli offered commiserations to the families of the quake victims.
He said though the reconstruction works have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, his government was committed to completing the remaining tasks at the earliest.
The coronavirus, which originated in China's Wuhan city, has claimed nearly 2,00,000 lives and infected over 2.8 million people in the world so far. There are 49 confirmed coronavirus cases in Nepal.