Mud-roofed houses vanishing in Humla

By Rajan Rawat,Humla, Jan. 18: The long-standing tradition of mud-roofed houses, built centuries ago across settlements in the Himalayan district of Humla, is gradually disappearing.

With the district now connected to the road network, residents are increasingly replacing traditional mud roofs with corrugated metal sheets, leading to the displacement of these heritage houses.

Until three years ago, the village of Thehe in Simkot Rural Municipality-2 was known as one of the district’s densest settlements of traditional mud-roofed houses. However, the number of such houses has been steadily declining since then, according to local resident Suman Bhandari.

He said that since people first settled in the village, houses with mud roofs had been the norm, but over the past three years, there has been a growing trend of replacing them with corrugated zinc sheets. 

The village has 460 households. Although mud-roofed houses have their own unique cultural identity, Bhandari expressed concern that this heritage is gradually being lost. So far, 27 houses in Thehe village have already replaced their mud roofs with corrugated metal sheets. 

Another local, Deepak Bhandari, said residents are compelled to make the change due to problems such as roof leakage during the monsoon and the heavy accumulation of snow in winter. He added that no concerned authority has paid attention to preserving these traditional houses.

A similar trend is seen in Maila settlement of Tanjakot Rural Municipality-2 in the southern part of the district. A local, Dhanraj Dhakal, said that until the area was connected to the road network, there were only one or two houses with zinc sheet roofs. Over the past two years, however, nearly half of the settlement has replaced mud roofs with metal sheets.

According to him, this trend of displacing mud-roofed houses is continuing across settlements in all 44 wards of Humla’s seven rural municipalities. Government programmes such as the People’s Housing Programme and the Safe Housing Programme for the poor are also supporting the replacement of mud-roofed houses.