Devastating rains cause heavy damage to life and property
By Our Reporter
The heavy rainfall just a week before the Dashain Festival has caused massive damage to life and property across the country killing 224 people and destroying property and development infrastructures worth over Rs. 17 billion.
In the two-day rainfall of September 27 and 28, 224 people were killed and 24 went missing in 17 districts, including the three in the Kathmandu Valley.
Among the seven provinces, Bagmati suffered the most with over 130 deaths followed by Koshi where 48 persons died.
While the southern part of the Valley, mostly Lalitpur suffered the most damage in the Valley, Kavre was hot the worst with 62 deaths and massive destruction to settlements, paddy fields and roads.
Roshi Rural Municipality and the BP Highway suffered massive destruction in Kavre while 35 bodies of passengers were recovered from the buses buried in a landslide at Jhayplekhola along the Tribhuvan Highway in Dhading.
The destruction occurred despite the pre-warning from the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology that the country was receiving excessively heavy rainfall. According to DHM, 25 locations measured record rainfall breaking previous records of rainfall. While Daman in Makwanpur received 410 mm of rainfall in 24 hours breaking the previous record of 273 mm on July 23, 1993. Likewise, Khopasi, Panchkhal and Dhulikhel in Kavre, Chandragadhi Jhapa, Kanyam in Ilam Kairenitar in Tanahun, Budhanilkantha in Kathmandu, Chapagaun in Lalitpur and Archale in Palpa received record rainfall causing the massive destruction.
Surprisingly, Dhobikhola did cause no damage while the Bagmati and Manahara also did not cause any damage until the Hanumante mixed with them. It means, the northern part received less rainfall than the southern part. Hanumante in Bhaktapur, Nakhkhu and Godavari in Lalitpur, Roshi in Kavre and Sunkoshi in Sindhuli caused the biggest damage this time.
When the country was lashed by the rainfall and floods, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli was in the USA. When the executive head of the country was not in the country, lapses were seen in taking prompt decisions for the rescue of the victims. When four persons in Nakkhu were seeking help staying on the roof of a house for hours, the government did nothing to save them and they were ultimately washed away. However, a labourer, Chaniklal Tamang managed to save three of them by swimming into the flooded Nakkhu.
Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak’s comments that the four persons in Nakhkhu could not be saved because of poor visibility drew criticism from public. Likewise, the comments made by PM Oli regarding the damages also drew criticism. When he said that the pre-warning by the DHM had not pinpointed the places that might suffer was heavily criticised.
Of course, the government did nothing to relocate the people living near the rivers despite warnings from the DHM, and as a result, the country suffered a lot of damage. In the rainfall of 36 hours, the Kathmandu Valley turned into a lake with deluge everywhere, signaling a faulty policy in allowing people to build houses in the risky areas.
When the Supreme Court issued an order prohibiting building any structure within 40 metres areas of the valley rivers, and Kathmandu Mayor Balen Shah decided to implement that, the government and the ruling parties attacked Mayor Balen Shah for his statement to implement the SC verdict and decided to seek vacate of the verdict. But the recent floods and the catastrophes near the rivers proved that SC and Mayor Balen were right.
With the destruction of roads, the capital valley has been cut off from the rest of the country. Although the government is working to clear the roads, traffic resumption on the long route has not yet been smooth. Many people preparing to go home to celebrate Dashain are worried about the road conditions and confused about whether they manage to reach home safely. Worse is the condition of the BP Highway built as an alternative route to enter the valley, and engineers have said that it will take at least three months to bring the road into operation. Many sections of the road have been washed away by the Roshi while landslides have buried it in many locations. The destruction of the roads has worried the people preparing to return home and the transport entrepreneurs as it was the time to do good business.
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