Floods in Nepal cause ongoing displacement

Nima Kafle - WNN MDG Stories

Rebuilding a home after Nepal's flooding.

Ms. Taslimun Nisha survived the April 2010 floods in Nepal by learning how to rebuild her own home. Married at the age of ten with only one surviving child out of seven, Nisha has received training from a program sponsored by DFID UK (UK Department of International Development). In September 2011 additional floods pelted Nepal causing regional displacement. Image: Sibongile Pradhan/LFP/DFID

(WNN/GPI): Bhim Dutta NEPAL: Hariya Devi Bhatta, 72, wipes the tears from her eyes as she reflects on what another flood season has stolen from her.

“Now there’s nothing left,” she says. “Everything is gone. The flood has wiped out our house and land.”

Flooding occurs across the region throughout the rainy season, which lasts from July to September. The Bhattas lost their home when the Mahakali River in Kanchanpur, a district in Nepal’s Far-Western region, flooded at the end of September 2011.

The Bhatta family has been homeless ever since. The family of seven is currently living with neighbors in Bhim Dutta, a municipality in the district. Other neighbors who lost their homes during the flood took shelter at the local primary school. Shankar Lahure, Bhatta’s neighbor, says he and his family of five lived at Mahakali Primary School for months after the flood.

“It all flowed with it,” Lahure says. “This year, the flood has also taken the house. There’s nothing left, not even clothes.”

Months after floods consumed houses, property and possessions in Nepal’s Far-Western region, families are still living in temporary shelters. Lack of food, potable water and sanitation has also created health issues. From the region’s plains to hilly areas, victims say that assistance has been weak or nonexistent. Government officials have been coordinating relief but admit that tight budgets have limited their ability to provide more direct assistance. Authorities say that construction of embankments would put an end to annual floods, but that the government lacks the funding to finance this more permanent solution.

Last year’s floods and landslides killed nearly 20 people in the region, according to the Far-Western Regional Administration Office in Dipayal. Six people are missing. Hundreds of families in the region have been displaced. In Kanchanpur district alone, more than 150 families have been displaced.

Every year, the floods and landslides during monsoon season lead to damage throughout the nine districts of Nepal’s Far-Western region.

“This is an annual calamity,” says Rajendra Singh Rawal, former vice chairman of Kanchanpur District Development Committee.

The floods and landslides have forced families here to spend months living in public schools, relief camps, huts on public lands, their neighbors’ houses or tents where their homes once stood.

Krishna Raj Joshi says he and his family spent months sleeping on the floor of the Mahakali Primary School on the riverbank. Because there were no other safe places in the periphery, the District Administration Office opened the school to displaced families. Joshi says they had to leave the school during the daytime and could return once classes ended.

Families have since left the school to live in tents on their old properties or to seek shelter with neighbors. Others are living in relief camps or have set up huts in the forest or on other public lands. Kalpana Sunar, a local resident whose family also sought refuge at the primary school, says they still lack even the most basic necessities.

“The flood took everything away,” Sunar says. “We don’t even have clothes to change.”

Sunar says food continues to be scarce, as the loss of land and vegetation from the floods and landslides has weakened local food production.

“You finish eating now and then you start thinking what you would eat later,” says Sunar, wiping tears from her eyes.

She says it’s been months since her family has eaten properly. “There’s not enough food for the children,” she says.

Bhatta says she has been begging for food in order to feed her family. “If the neighbors don’t give food, we have to stay hungry,” she says, as she carries some bricks from the remains of her house. “Our lifelong investments have all gone.”

Poor nutrition from the lack of food also leaves residents more vulnerable to health issues.

Binod Ojha, a health worker, says that the lack of proper sanitation and clean drinking water has led to disease, fever and diarrhea among the region’s population. Although the Nepal Red Cross Society and the Nepali army have aided in treatment, Ojha says people are still unaware of the health hazards that the lack of basic sanitation invites.

Beyond Kanchanpur, the rise in river levels in the neighboring Kailali district has also caused problems there, according to the Far-Western Regional Administration Office. The Kanchanpur and Kailali districts lie in the Terai, the low-lying plains at the foot of the Himalayas. But the situation isn’t much better in Nepal’s hilly zone, where the rest of the region’s districts lie. More than three dozen rivers in the area caused flooding in Dadeldhura, Doti, Baitadi, Bajhang, Achham, Bajura and Darchula.