Kathmandu, July 1 (IANS) Only 17 days into monsoon, Nepal Friday felt the adverse side of bountiful rains with landslides killing at least three people and inundation beginning in dozens of villages as well as areas of Kathmandu valley.
Two teenaged girls were killed in Palpa district after incessant rains triggered landslides while a 35-year-old man died in Rupandehi.
Landslides blocked sections of two major highways while rains caused a house to collapse in Kathmandu.
Wide areas in Lalitpur in Kathmandu valley remained submerged with small cars stuck in swirling waters reaching up to the windows.
Hospitals began to witness an upsurge in diarrhoea, one of the biggest killer diseases in Nepal, while nearly a dozen cases of cholera were reported by the local media.
In the southern Terai plains, the Saptakosi river remained a growing cause of concern for both Nepal and its neighbouring Indian state of Bihar, stalked by the spectre of another devastating flood.
The rain-swollen river was flowing at 157,900 cusec with the swift flow causing an erosion of embankments. Though the barrage built on the Kosi is designed to withstand a flow of 900,000 cusec, in 2008 weakened spurs collapsed when the water flow was only 160,000 cusec, triggering a devastating flood that affected over two million people in Bihar.
Several villages in Sunsari district, where the deluge had occurred in 2008 before spreading to Bihar, had been inundated while four spurs in Pratappur had become weakened due to the rains.
With the fear of a flood growing, allegations have begun to rise about the tardy reaction of the Bihar government, which, as per a water-sharing agreement, has the responsibility of maintaining the barrage on the Kosi river and its embankments.
Nepal’s irrigation authorities say Bihar’s Nitish Kumar government faced a delay in budget release, leading to a delay in the maintenance of the embankments on the Nepal side.
After a delayed and fitful monsoon for the last two years, this time the rains arrived before time.
While the showers brought relief in summer, in monsoon they have brought the terror of floods and landslides, followed by water-borne diseases.
(Sudeshna Sarkar can be contacted at sudeshna.s@ians.in)
