Bal Krishna Kasula does not have an engineering degree. He never went to university, all he has is a high school diploma. But so skilled is Bal Krishna in constructing and designing earthquake-resistant buildings that he is now training engineers and masons in earthquake-prone areas around the world.

In 1999 architects from the Kathmandu-based National Society for Earthquake Technology-Nepal (NSET) discovered his brick-laying skills while retrofitting a primary school building to make it earthquake resistant. NSET trained him to be a trainer of earthquake-resistant construction technology. Soon, he was retrofitting schools in Bhaktapur, Kirtipur, Nagarkot and Kathmandu and teaching other masons to do the same. In the last five years, he has helped rebuild more than 20 schools and trained more than 50 brick-layers. His skills were so useful that NSET sent him to Kabul, New Delhi and Tajikistan to train local masons. Most of them are now building with Nepali-designed earthquake-resistant technology.

Bal Krishna recently returned from Bam in eastern Iran which was devastated by an earthquake in December 2003. "It was quite difficult convincing them in the beginning, but they were overwhelmed when we showed them our demonstration set," recalls Bal Krishna. The models show how retrofitted houses remain intact when they are jolted, while traditional houses crumble. (See: '70 years later', #178).

Next week, Bal Krishna is off to Japan where he will train a group of Japanese students from four universities in Kobe, which was also badly damaged in an earthquake in January 1995. Over those two months, the Bhaktapur brick-layer will help design earthquake-resistant houses by combining Japanese and Nepali techniques.

Says Bal Krishna: "The Japanese have a lot of experience in earthquake-resistant buildings, but there may be a thing or two we can also show them."

NARESH NEWAR