Nuwakot [Nepal: Inside the tin-thatched room, Nangsi Tamang smears the floor with the red clay. As the soil dries, she and her husband, Singhbir Tamang, will have a new home to stay in after their settlement in Khalte of Rasuwa got swept by the ice, water and debris on August 26.
The couple were left with nothing except their wearables for that particular day when the flood warning came from their relatives via a call.
The elderly couple, along with others living in the riverside settlement, quickly moved to the highest ground, being able to save their lives.
“My house is gone; I am in deep worry. Now I don’t have anything. We don’t have anything to wear- even the slippers; everything was washed away. We neither have clothes nor slippers to wear when we came here. We didn’t even get anything to eat for two days; to save our lives, we came here,” Nangsi told ANI as she fetched water from the tap.
It has been over six weeks since she moved to Bada Chautara Temporary Shelter, first taking refuge in a donor-provided tent, but now she is moving to a tin-thatched room built by a donor organisation.
Nangsi, along with her husband and fellow survivors of the August 26 disaster, has crossed many hills before ending up in this temporary shelter. This is her second displacement in just over one decade.
At first, the displacement was triggered by the 2015 earthquake, which had ravaged the mountain villages of Mailung, Tiru, Haku and Gogane in Rasuwa district. The shaken land due to the 7.8-magnitude earthquake started losing grip, prompting landslide risks and forcing the Tamang settlement to relocate to the river embankment of Khalte.
At the time, 250 households had relocated themselves to the riverside settlement that too was prescribed by the government as a temporary relocation and, over time, turned out to be permanent. With August’s ice and rock avalanche, the community has ended up in temporary shelter in Nuwakot.
“We fled from Rasuwa on 10 Bhadra (August 26), then in the course of time we reached Nilkantha Municipality and then returned to Ladey; there we became determined that we cannot survive without proper electricity and salt. We made our way through the Mahabir, climbing up the hill and reached Simle; thereafter, we came further down, finally ending up at the Tamang block here. The local body of Bidur-04 made temporary arrangements for us, and thereafter we have been moved to Bada Chautara (current location), which is government-owned land and are being settled here,” Singhbir, husband of Nangsi, told ANI.
In the disaster, this Tamang couple has also lost a few of their relatives in the flood who are yet to be traced. Meanwhile, other settlers have lost 32 next of kin in the disaster and are struggling to cope with the trauma.
Tamang are one of Nepal’s major indigenous communities. The communities have long maintained strong connections with their land, settlements, livelihoods, culture, language, traditions and social and cultural ties.
One of the marginalised communities of the Himalayan nation, this particular ethnic community has been subjected to longstanding disparities. The disparity is more evident during disasters such as the 2015 earthquake, when, as per the Ministry of Home Affairs, about 34 per cent of the victims were from the Tamang community.
This Tibetan-Burma community, which holds about 6 per cent of the total population of the Himalayan Nation, has been constantly forced to move from one location to another, despite their adaptive nature.
At the camp of Bada Chautara, a total of 511 people are taking shelter, out of which 139 are females, 160 males, 115 boys and 97 girls below the age of 18. All those taking shelter at the temporary camp are worried that they have to move to another place again.
“It was also monsoon, and rainfall was immense; as we are the ones with the trauma of the flood, the rain added more peril while we stayed in the tent. After we get a better shelter under tin, we expect it won’t be similar to that of the tent, but the question of how long they will let us stay here is consuming us day by day. If they ask us to move out from here, then where will we go? Where shall we stay is also worrying us,” Singhbir told ANI.
The survivors here are constantly looking for employment opportunities to have some assurance to survive in the coming days. The uncertainty has gripped those living along the riverside in Nuwakot. At Devighat, Gopal Bahadur Sharki lost his shoe shop in the flood.
54 days after the flood, Gopal has set up a temporary shop within the ravaged area of Devighat amid uncertainty. There is no trace of his previously owned shop, and this temporary shop is set up on the dusty premises amid the rubble.
“I owned a shop here (Devighat). I managed to close the door of one side but couldn’t close the other side. I did love my shop, but I had to prioritise my life; the flood wiped out the shop. Now I am running my shop in this situation here to survive,” Gopal said, pointing towards his temporary makeshift shop.
Nepal on August 26 witnessed a “Himalayan Tsunami” triggered by a rock-and-ice avalanche, which has so far killed over 1400 people while more than 6000 are yet to be accounted for.
Search and recovery efforts are underway in parts of flood-affected areas, as widespread destruction by the flood has left more than 70,000 people directly affected, rendering them homeless.
In the August flood, the settlements on high-lying slopes bordering Tibet were completely washed out by the intensity of the flood that accelerated following the sudden outburst of a glacier. The Timure and Syafru Besi- the major settlements have been wiped clean by the flash flood that swept through with intensity.
About $5 billion is expected to be required for the reconstruction of the infrastructure, which is expected to take at least a decade to complete.