Photo: Jay Ramji from UK / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
Nepal ordered people living along the Budhi Gandaki river to move to higher ground on Sunday after a flash flood, set off by a landslide that blocked the river in Gorkha district, swept away houses, bridges and part of a hydropower construction camp in the country’s central hills. Authorities said there were no immediate reports of deaths, but they warned that the danger had not passed.
How the flood started
Officials said a dry landslide struck near Chumnubri village in Gorkha, about 100 km west of Kathmandu, and dammed the river. Water piled up behind the debris and then broke through, sending a surge of mud, rocks and debris downstream. The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA) said it was still working to establish exactly what triggered the flood.
According to officials, around a dozen houses and two suspension bridges were washed away. The NDRRMA said the sludge-heavy river also destroyed a highway bridge linking Gorkha with neighbouring Dhading district, an important road link in central Nepal. Local media reported that the bridge at the riverside town of Arughat, which connects the two districts, was swept away and that residents of the market area along the bank were moved to safer places. The Nepal Red Cross Society said the river at Arughat had crossed the danger level and was still rising, and urged people to keep away from the banks all the way down to its confluence with the Trishuli.
Rescues and alerts
Prime Minister Balendra Shah said the Nepal Army had rescued six people from Jagat village, which faced the threat of a fresh landslide. Officials also said 18 workers at the damaged hydropower camp got out safely before the water reached the site.
We have asked villagers living along the river banks downstream to evacuate and remain safe.
Dharmendra Kumar Mishra, Gorkha’s chief district officer
The NDRRMA issued emergency alerts for Gorkha, Tanahun, Chitwan, East Nawalparasi and West Nawalparasi districts, and asked people to stay alert until late Sunday. It was not yet clear how many of the small villages in the steep valley had been hit.
A country still rebuilding
The new flood comes only weeks after one of the worst disasters in Nepal’s recent history. In August, a glacier collapse in another tributary of the same river system triggered floods along the Nepal-China border that killed more than 1,400 people, with thousands more still missing, according to government figures.
Shah’s office said on Monday that search and rescue for victims of that disaster had formally ended, and that the focus would shift to rebuilding roads and bridges that have cut off remote communities and slowed aid deliveries. The government puts the cost of reconstruction at $4.77 billion. Nearly 33,000 people were affected and about 7,500 homes were damaged or destroyed. Sunday’s flood adds fresh damage to infrastructure in a region where that rebuilding has barely begun.
