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Nepal earthquake: Can a shattered economy be rebuilt?

On the morning of 24 April, 2015 a powerful earthquake of magnitude 7.8 on the Richter scale rocked Nepal. With 8 million people affected and more than 4,000 feared dead, the estimated cost of reconstruction is more than USD5 billion. The scale of devastation is bound to have an economic impact on one of the poorest countries in the world, affecting industries as diverse as tourism, energy, agriculture and infrastructure. What will it take to get Nepal back on track? The level of devastation The damage wrought by the earthquake was felt across the breadth ot this small country. It damaged buildings in the capital city of Kathmandu. As a result of the many aftershocks, buildings and temples collapsed, with roads splitting wide open due to cracks. Heritage sites such as Kathmandu’s Dharahara Tower (known as Bhimsen tower) – a 19th century structure with nine floors – collapsed, with at least 50 people stuck in the rubble. Dozens of historical buildings, monuments and temples