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29 August 2002 By Patrick Fuller in Kathmandu Man Bahadur Giri is lucky to be alive. He barely had time to escape before his home was swept away by flash floods. His home was in Brahmapuri, a village along the Bagmati river in the Terai region of central Nepal. He points to where his house once stood, fifty feet away from the riverbank in the midst of the brown swirling waters. "I can only thank god we are alive," he shrugs disconsolately, "but what am I to do now, I have lost everything." Sadly, the situation Man Bahadur faces is not unique; every year lowland regions of Nepal are flooded by heavy monsoon downpours, but this year's rains were among the heaviest the Himalayan Kingdom had known in thirty years, and 500 people lost their lives in the floods or landslides that followed. Over 12,000 families were moved from their homes. Unfortunately, many families found that that they no longer had homes to return to. In Man Bahadur's village, thirty homes were swept away by the river, and the displaced families's only choice was to seek shelter under a roof of plastic sheeting provided by the Nepal Red Cross, or camp out in the village school built by the Nepal Red Cross after bad floods hit the same village in 1993. Everyone in the community is facing the same problem. With the coming of the monsoon each year people know that the Bagmati river may change its course, or eat into their precious land. The river's massive force is all too apparent, in the space of two hours it encroached another five feet of land. All along the bank huge cracks form as the force of the current erodes the soil. Huge chunks of earth collapse intermittently and disintegrate as they hit the river below. Barely twenty feet away from the riverbank villagers are feverishly dismantling their homes and moving them to safety. The scene is invariably repeated every year. Most of the villagers do not own their own land. Many of them are daily wage labourers, picking up work in the fields of local landowners. They are attached to the place they were born and lived in, but they want to be resettled further away from the dangers of the river. The Nepalese Government, however, is wary as many hundreds of thousands of other people lived in similar circumstances. "There are practical solutions that can help reduce the risk to communities affected by disasters but in some situations a more permanent solution needs to be found," explains Dev Ratna Dhakwa, secretary general of the Nepal Red Cross. The Nepal Red Cross community based disaster preparedness programme has been addressing the needs of disaster hit communities for many years. In the nearby village of Chidayadaha local people have fared better in this year's floods. No houses were damaged and the river did not burst its banks thanks to the disaster mitigation programme implemented by the Nepal Red Cross with the support of European Community Humanitarian Office. At intervals along the riverbank, small thirty-foot check dams stick out like spurs into the river. The dams divert the flow of the river away from villages preventing any erosion. "Once communities see the benefit of these programmes they get much more involved in their implementation. Whether this involves building check dams or giving first aid training to volunteers, the experience teaches people that is in their interest to reduce the risks from disasters," says Mr. Dhakwa. Related links 12/08/02 - Nepal: Monsoon Floods and Landslides - Emergency Appeal 23/08/02 - Landslides prove to be the most deadly in Nepal - news story 12/08/02 - Nepal Red Cross leading flood relief operations - news story 16/07/02 - Nepal Red Cross respond to landslide tragedy - news story 13/08/02 - 260,000 people affected by floods in Nepal with situation set to worsen, says Red Cross Red Crescent - press release More on Nepal |
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