Nepal

Displaced Flood Victims Call for More Permanent River Control in Nepal

Displaced Flood Victims Call for More Permanent River Control in Nepal

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. 

Many people have moved from the hills to the Terai because they’ve lost their property, mainly due to landslides.

A dozen families from Dadeldhura district have been living in a relief camp in Kanchanpur since 2010, thanks to a flood and landslides that killed five people.

“The flood took away our house and land,” Dharmananda Saud of Dadeldhura says. “Nothing is left.”

The Saud family has since moved out of the camp and set up a hut in a nearby public forest.

“Now we’re staying here in the wild,” Saud says.

Three families from Bajura district live in the forest as well. Paramal Upadhaya, from Bajura, says his family of six lives in a small hut in the forest. He says they had to move down from the hills because they didn’t get any government assistance after the initial two weeks of flooding.

“The government didn’t give us anything,” he says.

Lahure echoes Upadhaya.

“The government didn’t give us anything,” he says.

Basudev Dahal, Kanchanpur’s chief district officer, says the government has been doing what it can to coordinate relief.

“We help to rehabilitate,” he says. “We try to get them assistance through other organizations.”

But he admits that weak resources paralyze the government’s ability to provide more direct assistance.

“Financial help will only be provided to families who’ve lost people in the flood,” he says. “We don’t have enough budget for others.”

The Central Natural Disaster Rescue Committee is a government agency under the prime minister to assist with relief and compensation for victims of floods, landslides and earthquakes. But Dahal and the coordinator of the District Natural Disaster Rescue Committee say there are no funds to financially assist or compensate victims.

“We don’t have our own budget,” says Keshab Dutta, who coordinates the committee in Kanchanpur. “We coordinate and work with the government and nongovernment organizations.”

Various organizations and security agencies have been providing assistance. Rural Reconstruction Nepal, a nongovernmental organization, has been working on development. The Nepal National Social Welfare Organization, a government organization, has given the flood victims food, such as rice, oil and salt. Victims have also received basic supplies, including utensils and tents.

“But it finished in a week,” Bhatta says of the food supplies. “No one came to give us any assistance for the second time.”

In addition to weak and inconsistent relief, residents say a more permanent solution to prevent future floods and landslides is lacking. Victims say they are still terrified that another flood could sweep away whatever they have left, and those who have been spared so far constantly fear that their turn is next.

“We can’t sleep at night,” Janak Saud, from Odali, says. “I come out four to five times at night just to check.”  

Government officials say that because of a lack of funds, few resources have been dedicated to river control to create a more permanent solution to the annual floods.

On the western side of the Mahakali River, neighboring India has a strong embankment. Floods and landslides aren’t an issue for its residents when the river level rises, unlike in Nepal, which lacks the necessary infrastructure. 

Madhav Ghimire, chief secretary of the government of Nepal, recently visited the region to inspect the flood-affected area. He says that the government should formulate a detailed strategy to build embankments along the Mahakali River.

“Small budgets won’t do,” he says. “We’ll have to formulate a detailed plan and then work on it.”

Janatako Tatbandha Organization, a nongovernmental organization that works on river control in the Far-Western region, also cites an insufficient budget as the obstacle to improving river control.

“The required budget is not there,” says Asharam Rai, chief district executive at the organization’s field office in Bhim Dutta. “To do some menial work doesn’t make any difference.”

Rai, who has also worked as an engineer, says the federal government can’t resolve the issue without international assistance.

“To control a river like Mahakali, budget like that from the Nepal government isn’t enough,” he says. “If the foreign sector doesn’t help, it’s going to remain the same.”

He says that local residents are forced to face the brunt of annual floods and landslides. On top of a lack of government initiatives, he says that residents poor financial situations prevent them from buying land elsewhere.

Meanwhile, the people affected by the floods and landslides are carrying on with their lives. Most of the displaced have moved back to their properties, building small tents where their houses once stood.

“We’re trying to clean the sand and start farming again,” says Parmananda Bhatta, a flood victim who is not related to Hariya Devi Bhatta.

People also continue to make frequent trips to their District Administration Offices, sometimes with appeals for help and other times in masses chanting for a permanent embankment.