Floods in Nepal: survivors lose homes and rice fields
In Nepal’s Nuwakot district, people who survived devastating floods report losing their homes, rice fields and plots of land. Some of those affected have moved in with relatives or into temporary shelters. The UN has appealed for $50 million in aid for more than 84,000 people affected in Nepal, Dawn reports.
The flooding on August 26 occurred after a large collapse of glacial mass high in the mountains on the China-Nepal border fell into a river. According to AFP, more than 1,300 people were killed in the two countries, while more than 5,600 others are considered missing.
A river where homes once stood
Forty-five-year-old Pabitra Lamsal lived with her family in Dhunge Bazar in Nuwakot district for more than 40 years. The water flow swept away her family’s two homes and rice fields. She said that a river now flows where the housing once stood, and no land remains.
Lamsal does not know where she will live next with her nine family members. The family rented two rooms for temporary shelter, but has no stove for cooking and eats at relatives’ homes. The woman also said that the water swept away all of the family’s money.
More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram.
In the affected area, destroyed buildings, trucks half-buried in silt and large accumulations of mud can be seen. Army helicopters involved in rescue operations regularly fly over the area.
Search for the missing and temporary shelter
Thirty-three-year-old Sumita Tamang, who was standing in line for food, said she had received no news from her husband for nine days after the flooding. She said she had looked for him everywhere and expressed hope that he was alive and would return home.
Ravendra Dawadi, the 47-year-old head of Trishuli Bazar Secondary School, said the current disaster was worse for the region than the 2015 earthquake. At that time, the school destroyed by the earthquake could be rebuilt because the plot of land remained. Now, he said, both the building and the land have been lost, so a new safe site is needed to restore the institution.
Shri Chandrajyoti Secondary School has sheltered hundreds of displaced residents of Nuwakot district. People line up there for hot meals and sleep on school benches, carrying few belongings with them. Seventy-two-year-old Krishna Lal Chitrakar said that the place in Devighat where his home and the homes of his three sons stood had turned into a riverbank.
