One person who lost everything was Khadanand Bhatta, an 80-year-old widower from Ashrang village, located just 26 miles from the earthquake’s epicentre. Before the earthquake, Khadanand spent his days tending his small garden, chatting with his fellow villagers and awaiting the visits of his daughter and grandchildren. His way of life was typical in rural Nepal, where farming terraces curve smoothly around the steep mountainsides, like contours on a map.

When the earthquake struck, his home along with everything in it was destroyed.

Stories of lucky escape show how close the earthquake came to claiming even more lives than it did. One survivor was Swetchnya Tamraker, a student from Kathmandu, who was studying for her exams in her third-floor bedroom when the earthquake began.

As testament to the resilience of the Nepali people, many markets re-opened within two weeks of the first earthquake. These local markets are an established distribution network from which local people can buy the items they most need. Communities are often best placed to judge what is needed after a disaster, so supporting them financially is crucial. The local markets system was by no means flawless but, given the wider context, it was a great start.

The giving of cash grants may be a surprising way to support those affected by the disaster, but in fact these grants have a double pay-off: they stimulate the local economy and give people more autonomy in their recovery.

Moreover, for the many people in Nepal who survive on their home-grown produce, the cash helped to quickly rebuild the livelihoods they had lost. Using the money to replace tools and seeds, small-scale farmers were able to replant and limit the impact of food shortages.

To overcome the difficulties of distributing cash across Nepal’s challenging terrain, DEC member agency Save the Children partnered with Hello Paisa. This innovative finance provider was able to make use of mobile phone technology to get money into the hands of those who needed it most.

While mobile banking services are common in some developing countries, as they allow secure access to financial services, this was one of the first times they have been used on such a wide scale as part of an emergency response.

Money can only do so much when buildings and infrastructure are badly damaged. More than half of the funds raised by the UK public were funnelled into essential shelter provision and masonry training.

Dom Hunt, a rapid response worker for Concern, remembers noting the pattern of damage when he first arrived in the country.

[bq]“You could see that villages near the top of ridges and those near rivers were terribly damaged, but that the ones in the middle weren’t as badly hit.”[/bq]

Geography and physics provide an explanation for these varying levels of damage. The houses built on the tops of mountains were subjected to more intense shaking during the earthquakes. Those down in the valleys are built on sedimentary soil, which magnified and reflected the shockwaves, leading to subsidence and collapse.

[bq]“In some areas, 95% of the village was flattened. You could smell decomposing bodies under the rubble.”[/bq]

In Nepali culture, men shave off their hair to signify a death in the family. Dom reached several villages to find every man with his head shaved; a stark record of the grim death toll.

With hundreds of thousands of homes wiped out, the need for rebuilding was acute. One enterprising mother, Shantha Shrestha, turned rebuilding into a business. She lives in Machgam village with her husband and four teenage children.

Their home was mostly spared from serious damage and, a few months after the earthquake, Shantha and her husband were trained in safe shelter construction by DEC member agency Christian Aid.

[bq]“Thank you so much for the training you have provided. This has been the difference between happiness and sadness."[/bq]

They set up a workshop next door to their home, receiving commissions from enthusiastic local and not-so-local villagers, and providing windows and doors at affordable prices, even for the relatively poor. Investment from a government house-building initiative now looks set to cement their business plan, and Shantha and her husband are in turn beginning to train up their fellow villagers.

A few miles away, Khadka Bahadur Rana was left in a desperate situation when his grocery shop, located at the bottom of a mountainside, was destroyed. Not only had he been the sole provider for his family, he now found himself without a home for his many dependants.

When the DEC visited him to find out how he had got on with CAFOD’s "build back safer” training, he was found hard at work, knee-high in mud and cement, smiling. His delight at being able to use his new skills to rebuild his house was plain to see, and a common sight around the Nepali countryside.

One innovative project was run at a roadside in the badly hit Gorkha district, close to the earthquake’s epicentre. Through practical demonstrations and hands-on experience, people were shown how traditional building techniques could be adapted and strengthened to make homes more earthquake-resistant.

Elsewhere, locals learned advanced carpentry skills and how to construct safer shelters. Khadanand, the elderly widower who lost everything, now lives in a new home, built for him by his fellow villagers.

Recognising his vulnerability, they all came to help, rebuilding his home with reinforced joints to give it a much better chance of withstanding a further shock – and strengthening their own sense of community too.

One example of a successful partnership was when Oxfam teamed up with Women for Human Rights (WHR), a charity working to improve the status of women in Nepal. In this profoundly patriarchal society, Nepali women are often discriminated against. The situation is particularly bad for widows, as a single woman is viewed as an ill omen.

Together, Oxfam and WHR built women’s shelters in six of the worst affected districts, where they provided counselling and referral services to women and girls. Tearfund also gave five-day training sessions on trauma counselling, gender-based violence and trafficking to help women tackle issues within their communities.

A few months on from the earthquake, Saleh Saeed, Chief Executive of the DEC, took his own journey to Nepal, travelling through the monsoon across difficult terrain to see the work of the member agencies.

During his visit to the Tistung district, Saleh listened to one villager's tale, a story common to people across the country.

[bq]“Sadly, their old water source was affected by the earthquake and had become contaminated. One lady explained how she had to walk an hour downhill to collect dirty water from a stream, and then struggle back with 16 litres of that water on her back for her family.”[/bq]

By the time of Saleh’s visit, Tearfund were working with local government representatives to identify a new, more reliable water source for the village.

Getting children back into education was another priority. School buildings lay in ruins, or were damaged enough to pose a serious threat to life. In Tistung district alone, eight of the twelve schools were left unusable.

So member agencies erected temporary learning centres. These bamboo-walled buildings, with corrugated galvanised iron sheets for roofs, offer a safe space for children to continue their education. But they are only a stopgap. In the medium term, new school buildings will need to be constructed, using the earthquake-resistant techniques shared by non-governmental organisations over the past year.

Saira, who we met earlier fleeing her collapsing home, found work at one of these temporary learning centres through Christian Aid. The tragic death of her grandmother had been followed by her father’s sudden paralysis and loss of employment.

But thanks to the temporary learning centre, Saira’s younger siblings were able to continue their education and she soon realised her dream: to become a teacher of Nepali and health studies.

For the DEC member agences, the work continues. Now only twelve months into the three year relief and recovery plan, the DEC hopes that many more Nepali people will be able to share in Saira's bright hopes for the future.

On the morning of Saturday 25 April 2015, news broke of a serious earthquake in Nepal. As a full picture of the extensive devastation became clear, the DEC took the decision to launch a nationwide fundraising appeal at midday on the Monday.

One of our star fundraisers, Julius, shared a personal message explaining why he felt moved to raise money for the Nepal Earthquake Appeal.