Quake victims find themselves out of frying pan into fire

By Raju Lamichhane,Rukum West, Aug. 7: The residents of Rukum West, who suffered human and physical losses from an earthquake in November last year, are now tolerating the monsoon-related disasters. With the arrival of destructive monsoon rains, they have discovered that they are out of the frying pan into fire.

Many families, who had been living in temporary shelters after the earthquake destroyed their homes, are spending their nights in constant fear, with some forced to live under tarpaulins. 

Nara Bahadur Khadka from Farulagaun, Aathbiskot Municipality-11, lamented that another disaster struck before the wounds from the previous one were healed, making their life more miserable.  

He said that while they were fortunate to survive the earthquake, the monsoon rains added woes. 

Khadka said, "The earthquake destroyed our house, and now the landslide has taken away the temporary shelter we built to stay in." 

Eight temporary shelters in Farulagaun were damaged by the landslide, and 45 houses are still at high risk.

Birmi Nepali from the same village said that they were now living under tarpaulins after the landslide swept away their makeshifts. 

Nepali said that they managed to escape the landslide that came from Sawanepani above the village but could not save their food grains and other belongings. 

Dozens of families who had been living in temporary shelters built with the grant money provided by the government after the earthquake have now moved under tarpaulins after the landslides destroyed the temporary houses. 

Nepali said, "We used the first tranche from the government and some additional funds to build the shelter, but before we could receive the second instalment, the landslide destroyed it. We are facing one disaster after another." 

On July 16, three girls sleeping in a shelter in ward 12 lost their lives in a flood. Living under tarpaulins on rented land

Sixteen families from Farulagaon have been provided with tarpaulin shelters on the land of local Khal Bahadur Gharti. The ward office rented the land and moved the landslide-affected families to a safe location. 

Ward Chairman Prem Bahadur Pun said that these families had no other land to live on, as even their orange farmland and maize crops were swept away by the landslide.

Like the Farulagaon settlement, the villages of Chisapani, Goiri and Dadagaun in the same ward are at high risk of landslides.  Sixty-four houses in Chisapani are at risk of landslides, with 30 families having already left their homes to seek safe shelter elsewhere. Twenty houses in Goiri village are also at risk, with four families living under tarpaulins.

After the earthquake, most settlements and houses in the area are at risk of flooding and landslides, ward chair Pun said.  

According to Chief District Officer Hari Prasad Panta, five persons have died and one has been missing due to monsoon-related incidents in Aathbiskot and Musikot this monsoon. 

In addition, 16 livestock have died, 18 houses, 12 water mills, and one school have been destroyed. Across the district, 283 families have been displaced, and 2,700 households are at risk due to flooding and landslides.