Flooding again ravages Melamchi; millions of rupees worth of property damaged

Flooding since Saturday has again taken its toll at already flood-hit Melamchi in the district sweeping away 60 huts and incurring property loss worth millions of rupees, said the police.

A bridge linking Helambu and Melamchi has also been washed away, disconnecting the road network with many villages.

Earlier, five people were killed and 20 others went missing in Sindhupalchok district in the flooding on June 15 and 30 that affected Helambu and Melamchi. As many as 176 families have been displaced.

Properties worth millions of rupees were damaged in the flooding. More than one and a half months have passed since the flooding occurred the first time, the government has not taken any preventive measures to save the villages prone to the disaster, complained one Chandra Bahadur Tamang, who runs a hotel in Melamchi. He urged the government at all three levels to protect the settlements at risk of flooding instead of focusing on relief.

The government should help remove debris so they can live in the damaged houses, the flood victims have demanded.

The flood survivors are disheartened to see the losses of millions of rupees in the devastating flood. They have lost houses, farms, and arable land in the disaster.

One Laxmi Shrestha of Malamchi said she owns a piece of land measuring four ana (one ana is equivalent to 31.80 square meters), but it is being eroded by the flooded river.  ''We have not much hope from the government which is relatively far from us. We are sad to feel that even the local government is not with us during this tough time," she said.

Those houses which could resist the devastating flood could be saved from future disaster, but it seemed that the government had overlooked our pains, and taking further preventive measures was not it of concern at all, she argued.

The affected are infuriated as they accuse the government of showing no concern to provide temporary or permanent shelter to the displaced.  Flood Affected and Melamchi Rebuilding Concerned Committee leader Sagar Shrestha said if there was will on the part of the local government, additional losses from the flood could be evaded through the week-long efforts.

Now, flood survivors are united to save the settlement on their own. They have grievances over the government as they realize that it became apathetic to their issues.

However, Chief District Officer Arun Kumar Pokhrel said there was no possibility of doing anything in the affected areas without having a study on Bhremathan, the source of origin of the flood.  Without addressing the situation in the source, no preventive measures in the low-lying areas will turn non-effective, according to him.