The nation will have to rebuild around 20,000 houses in flood-ravaged areas, authorities said, even as rescuers search for workers trapped in tunnels linked to hydropower projects and thousands remain missing after last week’s catastrophe.
A glacier collapse on Aug 26 sent a deluge of ice, rock and mud sweeping through the impoverished nation’s border region with China, wiping out settlements and villages and leaving few houses standing and undamaged.
“Our preliminary estimates are that 7,500 houses have been completely destroyed, either washed away or buried under debris and mud,” Dharma Raj Upreti, chief of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, said yesterday.
Even houses still standing were not habitable, Upreti said, with authorities estimating that around 20,000 houses would have to be rebuilt.
At least 1,204 people were killed last week as waters carrying ice, mud and rock swept over houses, streets and schools in towns and villages near the country’s border with China’s Tibet.
More than 4,200 people are still missing and thousands more displaced.
“There is no point in rebuilding the houses in the same locations, as that would expose people to the same risks,” Upreti said.
Authorities were working to identify safer areas where new houses can be built and settlements relocated, so that people are not exposed to similar disasters in the future, he said.
Nepal’s Prime Minister Balendra Shah said on Wednesday that his government was focusing on rehabilitation and rebuilding efforts while continuing to look for survivors among the thousands still missing.
An army officer involved in the search-and-rescue operation, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the search was continuing for survivors believed to be trapped in the tunnels related to hydropower projects.
“All the tunnels are being searched with the assistance of experts from India, South Korea and China,” he said.
“The search-and-rescue operation will continue as long as there is any hope of finding survivors.
“Even if there are no survivors, we will recover the dead bodies,” he said. — Reuters
