<img width="500" height="750" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111410110/6372043d9c7e80680e0b284fjpeg.jpg" alt=""/><img width="1000" height="1500" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111410110/6372043f9c7e80680e0b2850jpeg.jpg" alt="">Photos: BIKRAM RAI/NEPALI TIMESEarthquakes are inevitable in Nepal. It is not a question of ‘if’, but ‘when’. And ‘when’ was 2:28PM on 15 January 1934. It was <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/kundadixit/2015/05/27/a-month-that-felt-like-a-year/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">11:56AM on 25 April, 2015</a>. Another memorable and tragic date in future is certain.But Nepalis have short memories. As long as aftershocks shook us, we were reminded about the horrors. But seven years after 2015, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/tall-order/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the fear has evaporated</a>.This is not panic-mongering, or crying wolf. It is reality: every part of the central Himalaya is hit by a megaquake above 8 magnitude every 500 years or so, and a moderate intensity quake every 100 years.The 2015 disaster was not a Big One, 1934 was. Nonetheless, both released some of the built-up tectonic tension underneath us. What worries Himalayan seismologists is that there has been no <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/epicentre-of-two-disasters-in-west-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">major earthquake in western Nepal</a> in the last 500 years. The rock strata beneath are stretched to breaking point.Experts tell us that if an 8M earthquake strikes in this seismic gap between Pokhara and Dadeldhura, it will also rock Kathmandu and be even more damaging than 2015.That <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/rebuilding-five-years-after-2015-quake/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">7.8M earthquake seven years ago</a> was comparable to the 7.7M quake in Gujarat in 2001, and the 7.6M temblor in 2005 in Kashmir. In 2015, Nepal saw greater physical damage, but India and Pakistan had much higher casualties. One reason was that we were lucky 25 April 2015 was a Saturday, and students were not in classrooms.To mark National Earthquake Safety Day on 15 January, we recap the past seven years. There is some good news: over 80% of reconstruction is complete. Nepal’s recovery has been smoother than other developing countries hit by mega disasters.  Despite initial delays due to political muddles and the Blockade, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/lessons-not-learned-from-2015/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reconstruction in most sectors</a> picked up in 2016. Today, only health facilities and heritage sites are lagging at about 65% completion. Most rebuilt homes follow national seismic resistance guidelines because masons were trained, and there was monitoring before grants were released in installments.However, reconstruction in Kathmandu and other towns have not even passed the 60% mark, and could take another five years. The Rs300,000 reconstruction grant was just not enough for families to rebuild urban homes. More worrisome is that whatever has been rebuilt in Kathmandu Valley mostly flout building codes and permits.The <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/building-back-unsafe,3674" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Gongabu neighbourhood saw 160 deaths</a> in 2015, most of them were crushed under illegally built concrete structures. Most of those high rises have been rebuilt using the same faulty techniques.Except in Gongabu, most concrete structures survived the 2015 quake in Kathmandu. This has <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/false-sense-of-security-about-strength-of-reinforced-concrete-structures,2240" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reinforced public misconception</a> that cement houses, regardless of how they are built, are stronger than brick and mortar ones.However, seismologists say that if the tremors in 2015 were only a few seconds longer and the magnitude slightly higher, many of Kathmandu’s concrete buildings would have also collapsed. They are unlikely to be spared in the next big one.Seven years after the earthquake, it is back to business as usual. In fact, Kathmandu is now more dangerous because it is even more densely packed, and there are more multi-storey blocks. Clearly, awareness about earthquakes has not translated into safer construction — we have forgotten that earthquakes do not kill people, poorly built structures do.Surya Narayan Shrestha at the National Society for Earthquake Technology – Nepal (NSET) tells us that building codes need to be strictly enforced with stringent monitoring mechanisms. Municipalities must be stricter with building permits.Next, masons and concrete moulding workers need skills upgrading in earthquake resistant building technology. Security personnel now need <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Search-locate-%20rescue-in-collapsed-concrete-houses,3676" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">training in search and rescue</a> under collapsed concrete structures.Shrestha says schools, hospitals and public buildings need to be retrofitted urgently. Many schools NSET had <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/preparedness-saves-lives,2264" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">helped retrofit</a> withstood the 2015 earthquake, and this model needs to be replicated across western Nepal.Nepal’s towns are losing open spaces, which are vital as shelters in the aftermath of future earthquakes. Kathmandu must <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepali-artists-butterfly-effect/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">protect remaining open spaces</a>, and these efforts need to be scaled up not just for earthquake safety but also to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/mini-forests-to-make-kathmandu-more-liveable/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">restore the city’s lungs</a>.   Preparedness will mean life or death for all Nepalis, not just for those in the seismic gap in the western part of the country. This should be the main message on the National Earthquake Safety Day. Earthquakes are beyond our control, but we can <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/past-disasters-foretold/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">make ourselves safer</a> when they happen.Sonia Awale

Sonia Awale

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Lessons still not learnt

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111015118/636d06359c7e80680e0a5f4ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1920" height="1080"/><figcaption>The Kosi Barrage on the Indian border where the river funnels out into the inland delta in Bihar.</figcaption></figure><ul><li>Three decades after it was first proposed, a 26.5km tunnel starts supplying water from Melamchi to Kathmandu.</li> <li>A <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/drones-to-the-rescue-in-melamchi/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/drones-to-the-rescue-in-melamchi/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1625725666191000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEISH8LehEm5nAihrdyEOSDxSXsUg">deadly flood</a> on the Melamchi-Indrawati in Sindhupalchok on 16 June kills at least 27 people, and destroys infrastructure.</li> <li>The much-delayed 465MW Upper Tama Kosi hydropower plant starts feeding electricity to the national grid.</li> <li>SJVN says it has completed half the work on the 900MW Arun III project and the Investment Board awarded it another contract to develop the 679MW Lower Arun as well.</li> <li>Work has begun on the Sunkosi-Marin Diversion, to channel water to the Bagmati Basin and irrigate much of Province 2.</li></ul>All five events have one thing in common: they are all on the trans-boundary Kosi Basin that drains 75,000 sq km of territory in China, Nepal and India.Last week, I was standing on the Pati Bhanjyang ridgeline at the northeastern rim of Kathmandu Valley. Pour a glass of water on one side, and it flows westwards into the Gandaki River Basin. On the other side the streams drain into the Melamchi, which meets the Indrawati, then the Bhote Kosi to become the Sun Kosi that flows 200km eastward until it merges with the Arun and Tamor to form the Sapta Kosi.At that point, the river makes a tight turn south to tumble into the Kosi megafan in the Tarai and Bihar to finally to join the Ganga at Kursela. The Kosi, in fact, is the largest tributary of the Ganges, bigger than the Gandaki, Karnali, Jamuna, and even bigger than the Ganga itself as it debouches into the plains at Haridwar.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111015118/636d06389c7e80680e0a5f4fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1920" height="1080"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The Kosi’s origin in Nepal is near Kathmandu. But it largest tributary, the Arun, originates in Tibet where it is called the Phung Chu, makes a mighty arc in Tibet and cuts through the Himalaya between Mt Makalu and Mt Kangchenjunga to meet its siblings Sun Kosi and Tamor at Tribeni.Geologists say rivers like the Arun that slice through the Himalaya are older than the mountains, and cut their way through as the terrain rose over millions of years with the collision of the India and Eurasian tectonic plates.The Kosi watershed therefore drains an enormous vertical landscape stretching from Mt Xixapangma which lies just 80km on the other side of the Himalaya in China, both sides of Mt Gauri Shankar (Chomo Tseringma), Mt Everest and Mt Makalu, as well as the western slopes of Kangchenjunga. Six of the world’s 13 peaks above 8,000m are therefore a part of the Kosi catchment.These mountains block the monsoons, and in eastern Nepal their southern slopes get more than 3,000mm of rain a year, weathering them down relentlessly, making the sedimentation load of the Kosi the heaviest for any river in the world.The topography of this mighty river has shaped Nepal’s history and culture, and can determine the country’s future prosperity as well. But only if we respect its geology, hydrology and the climate of its basin.Watershed expert Madhukar Upadhyay says, “We have not even begun to understand the hydrological and geological specificities of our mountains and rivers and yet are rushing headlong into ever-larger infrastructure development. Nepalis will still be here 500 years from now, what kind of country and landscape are we leaving behind for them?”Last month, landslides blocked the Melamchi-Indrawati, unleashing a deadly debris flow that destroyed infrastructure, homes and livelihoods. It imperilled <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/light-at-the-end-of-the-melamchi-tunnel/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/light-at-the-end-of-the-melamchi-tunnel/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1625725666191000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEaXQ5HnjB92xgkbHBEnnbl5xiwow">the Melamchi project</a>, and its tunnel supplying water to Kathmandu was saved only because the gates were closed for maintenance just hours before the onrush.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111015118/636d063c9c7e80680e0a5f50jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1920" height="1080"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>This week, the Upper Tama Kosi project started generating electricity, that will provide one-third of Nepal’s total power demand. But there was a scare just days before the inauguration: China informed Nepal that a massive landslide had blocked the river upstream, threatening the Rs55 billion project. Fortunately, the river found its way around the blockage. The near escapes of the Melamchi and Upper Tama Kosi sites make us take Upadhyay’s warnings seriously.Other <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/monsoon-hits-nepal-with-a-bang/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/monsoon-hits-nepal-with-a-bang/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1625725666191000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHkbbDluGypXbbgC1BQxVAVndFTvA">flash floods this year </a>in Manang, Kaski and Lamjung also showed that while our rivers hold great promise, we ignore the risk to settlements and major infrastructure along their banks. Our engineering methods have been inherited from the West, and do not account for cloudbursts and extreme Himalayan weather events. All these risks have been exacerbated by climate change.In Melamchi, the power of the flood last month is evident in the steel hulk of the Indrawati Bridge that lies crumpled in the muddy river 100m downstream amidst room-sized boulders. The new sand bank is 25m thick, indicating the flood’s maximum height.It is not clear what happened, for a bishyari or two (bursting of a landslide-damming of the river) would not be enough to generate such a massive debris flow. Some speculate there may have been centuries-old glacial deposits which suddenly got released through a combination of earthquake weakening and heavy rain.We also saw that <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/after-the-deluge-in-nepal/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/after-the-deluge-in-nepal/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1625725666191000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFAaYeK5lUf9eY4-j8mOHnFIUOT5A">Melamchi Bazar </a>had expanded into the river’s flood plain, with buildings in place of rice paddies, which added to the loss of life and property. Less than a month after the disaster excavators and tipper trucks are already on the Indrawati river bed, scooping up sand and boulders to feed Kathmandu Valley’s voracious appetite for construction material.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111015118/636d06409c7e80680e0a5f51jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1920" height="1080"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>It is the Kosi’s Melamchi tributary that augments Kathmandu’s water supply, while the sand and boulders from the Indrawati, Sun Kosi, Bhote Kosi and Rosi fulfil the Valley’s demand for sand and aggregates.While earthquakes, floods and landslides are seen as ‘natural disasters’, and indeed they are to some extent, they become ‘man-made’ calamities with unregulated sand-mining of rivers, quarrying on steep slopes, and haphazard road-building.The highway along the Indrawati is crowded with sand-laden tipper trucks bound for Kathmandu. Downstream towards the Kosi Barrage along the BP Highway, the road follows the river past the site where a part of the Sun Kosi is to be channeled through a 13km tunnel to irrigate farmlands in the Tarai of Province 2. A similar inter-basin diversion scheme on the Kali Gandaki is now pitting Gandaki vs Lumbini Province, and the central government.We finally get to the new bridge across the Sapta Kosi at Chhatara, connecting Udayapur and Sunsari districts. This is exactly the point where, after its epic journey from the Tibetan Plateau and between the highest mountains in the world, this great river fans out into the plains.https://youtu.be/34lmOgPv-zkNorth of the bridge is the site of the proposed mammoth <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=2413#.YOQRoi8RoWo" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D2413%23.YOQRoi8RoWo&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1625725666191000&amp;usg=AFQjCNF86VG9E0i8u5OqfG5NvKJKILpBEA">Kosi High Dam</a>. The 300m high dam will create a reservoir submerging huge tracts of the Sun Kosi, Arun and Tamor Valleys in a kind of ‘trishul’. India needs the dam for flood control, and to facilitate inland navigation by storing monsoon water and discharging it in the dry season. But there are many questions regarding the proposed mega project.To begin with, the high silt load means that a future Kosi Reservoir would soon fill up with sediment. There are alternatives to dams: people in the Kosi plains have learnt to live with annual floods which deposit valuable soil nutrients, and diverting water through earlier river channels would ease flood impact.The village of Hanuman Nagar had to be relocated because of the barrage, and 60 years later some of its families and those further upstream have still not got compensated. The barrage also destroyed an important wetland, and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-great-trans-himalayan-bird-migration/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-great-trans-himalayan-bird-migration/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1625725666191000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFOCjdWAUhLv8LM1mLEnBNbFZeVHQ">migratory birds </a>now alight in <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=15974#.YOQSqy8RoWo" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D15974%23.YOQSqy8RoWo&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1625725666191000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH9ndET9JXr1SU0_SRmfnAXaLeZ5A">Kosi Tappu Wildlife Reserve</a> instead.Extending the reserve further north and south could increase the habitat of endangered arna, wild elephants and freshwater dolphins, encourage ecotourism, and provide income to villagers whose grandparents had to move.The 60-year-old embankments that jacket the Kosi upstream and downstream from the Barrage have created the potential for a massive future disaster, an inland tsunami. Because of the river’s heavy silt content, the Kosi now flows on a deck 3-4m above the surrounding land. <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=15163#.YOQR6y8RoWo" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D15163%23.YOQR6y8RoWo&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1625725666191000&amp;usg=AFQjCNELQRpfAALk_H4uMYlUohTJDiWrQg">In 2008, the Kosi breached the eastern embankment </a>at Kusaha, causing <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=15193#.YOQTGy8RoWo" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D15193%23.YOQTGy8RoWo&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1625725666191000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGQbFvez-8I6Bv7_rYVwfQpczaNAg">destruction </a>downstream in Sunsari and Bihar. And that was when the river was not even in spate.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111015118/636d06439c7e80680e0a5f52jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1920" height="1080"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>With extreme weather caused by climate change, or a confluence of cloud-bursts in the mountain catchment, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=3526#.YOQSOy8RoWo" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D3526%23.YOQSOy8RoWo&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1625725666191000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEvH8AZlBKUPb68a4OulBhpsm0Q2w">a record-breaking flood in future</a> could cause an engorged Kosi to bypass the barrage altogether and unleash a catastrophic flood downstream.The Kosi Barrage was meant to be a temporary solution, and the Kosi High Dam was always in the minds of the Indian authorities. There is a need for transparent and independent study by water experts, social scientists and technocrats to study the pros and cons of the Kosi High Dam.Siltation, seismicity, adaptation and mitigation, all need to be factored in with projected future climate impact. Meanwhile, across the world, ecologists are warning that the price to pay for large dams is too great because of the destruction of river ecosystems.A massive rockfill dam on a seismically active zone, the geopolitical implications as well as the social and environmental costs may outweigh the planned benefits. To make up for the mistake of the Kosi Barrage, we may be making an even greater blunder with the Kosi High Dam.

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The Kosi’s sorrow, and scope

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121144/636b93019c7e80680e06f180jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1502" height="1000"/><figcaption>Mahendra Shrestha, 61, of Melamchi Bazar breaks down as he surveys the damage to his house on Wednesday. Photo: AMIT MACHAMASI</figcaption></figure>Nepal sits upon a pyramid of problems: poverty, inequality, exclusion, domestic violence, social injustice, l<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-epidemic-of-hunger/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ack of food</a> ... the list is long.On top of all that, for more than a year now, Nepalis have struggled with the health and economic emergency set off by the pandemic. And this week, we suffered floods that killed at least 25 — mostly in the same areas affected by the 2015 earthquakes.Meanwhile, Nepal’s predominantly rain-fed agriculture is affected by extreme weather events exacerbated by the climate crisis. Nepal had the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-is-going-up-in-smoke/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-is-going-up-in-smoke/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1624001295575000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG7snQxuyb8ljJ-v8_vj85fB3rJtg">worst wildfire season</a> in living memory this spring. Right across the Himalayan foothills, the mountains burned from November till March – and at its peak there were nearly 2,000 fires raging out of control.The scorched earth barely had time to regenerate when <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/monsoon-hits-nepal-with-a-bang/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/monsoon-hits-nepal-with-a-bang/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1624001295575000&amp;usg=AFQjCNF6XySMZiv3mcpFc2sspLEcF7C1MQ">the monsoon arrived this week with a bang</a>. A low-pressure system lingered over Central Nepal 13-16 June, dumping record precipitation, much of it in the trans-Himalayan region which is supposed to be in the rain-shadow. The denuded slopes could not hold the water, and the runoff surged into rivers washing away homes, bridges, roads and hydropower plants.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121144/636b93049c7e80680e06f181jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1174" height="770"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Disasters are of two kinds: ‘natural’ calamities that hit without warning, and slow-moving ones that worsen incrementally. Earthquakes, floods and landslides get all the media attention — especially if there are good social media visuals. News, by definition, has to be unexpected, preferably sudden and with lots of casualties in one place.Journalism is less prepared to cover lingering crises, where thousands die over time, silently and scattered across remote areas of the country. The fact that half the country’s children suffer some form of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/hunger-for-governance/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">malnutrition is a disaster</a>  So are the high maternal and neonatal mortality rates. These are silent emergencies.We chronicle the daily Covid-19 death toll, but there are no headlines that say dozens of children died yesterday all over Nepal due to preventable causes. There is no one doing that daily tally, and announcing it in a press briefing.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121144/636b93079c7e80680e06f182jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2244" height="1122"><figcaption>Aerial view of the Melamchi Water Supply Project headworks is covered in mud after Tuesday's flashflood. Eight staff, including Indian and Chinese nationals are missing. Photo: SHER BAHADUR TAMANG</figcaption></figure><a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/dont-just-blame-god-for-floods-and-landslides/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/dont-just-blame-god-for-floods-and-landslides/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1624001295575000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHKPr6SuzZQataATHZkSSug0XBLuA">Natural disasters are not natural</a>. Floods by themselves do not ‘wreak havoc’, they do so when houses are allowed to be built along floodplains. This week’s floods in Manang, Mustang, Kaski, Sindhupalchok were not unexpected. The intensity of rain may have been beyond our control, but preparing for a flood in a high-risk zone should have been.<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/sindhupalchok-losing-hope%20,2224" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/sindhupalchok-losing-hope%2520,2224&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1624001295575000&amp;usg=AFQjCNE3Asf_cnEe616L_p7i6YacCKXJnA">Sindhupalchok</a> was hit by both the 25 April and 12 May <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/being-prepared-for-monsoon-and-outbreaks,2293" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/being-prepared-for-monsoon-and-outbreaks,2293&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1624001295575000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGldHe3LcBfv9vWQUhfUXZhfPWjmQ">earthquakes in 2015, </a>which caused massive landslides. Haphazard road-building on fragile slopes increased the danger, and one of these landslides blocked the Melamchi about 3 km upstream from the headworks of the water supply project. A similar slope failure dammed the Indrawati.When it burst, the Melamchi Khola swept into the water supply project camp, and eight people including six Indian and Chinese and two Nepali workers are missing. Downstream, two more bodies have been found and 17 are more unsccounted for. Luckily, the 26.5km tunnel bringing water to Kathmandu from Melamchi had been closed a few hours before for inspection, and this saved the project from major damage.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121144/636b930a9c7e80680e06f183jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2110" height="1388"><figcaption>The Melamchi Khola was dammed by a landslide 3km upstream from the tunnel intake. Photo: SHER BAHADUR TAMANG</figcaption></figure>The torrent of liquid mud on both rivers arrived simultaneously at their confluence in Melamchi Bazar. Geographer Narendra Khanal has traced the Indrawati River blockage to a point 20km upstream. The Department of Hydrology and Meteorology monitoring station shows the Indrawati flowing at 4.7m at 4OM on 15 June, decreasing to 3m, and then shooting up to 6m at 6:45PM.“This is an indication that the river was blocked upstream in an area with major landslides after the 2015 earthquake, and suddenly the water broke through,” Khanal explains.T<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-valley-suffers-quadruple-disaster/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-valley-suffers-quadruple-disaster/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1624001295575000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHl03Z5EnJptFLNkk3GSzcew1FCVw">he river overflowed into Melamchi Bazar</a> at high velocity because much of the sand and boulders that would have slowed it down had been mined by construction contractors.He says none of the glacial lakes in the Jugal Himal appear to have burst. Although this was fortunate, it also shows how much more catastrophic future floods can be if <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/danger-nepals-glacial-lakes-are-filling-up/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/danger-nepals-glacial-lakes-are-filling-up/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1624001295575000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGpEfjfrRnTUfi0zqzCpVxtkmmU-A">expanding Himalayan lakes formed by global warming burst</a>.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121144/636b930c9c7e80680e06f184jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1440" height="1074"><figcaption>Google Map showing the Melamchi and Indrawati Rivers and the location of landslide dams. Illustration: NARENDRA KHANAL</figcaption></figure>The reason for the loss of property was not the flood itself, but unplanned construction on the floodplain. Luckily, Ward 11 Chair Rudra Dulal in Melamchi Bazar had advance information about the incoming flood and moved 100 families out of harm's way after informing police to begin evacuation.“We received an early warning and we mobilised our team, informed everyone. This is the only reason why we didn’t have any casualties in our community,” Dulal says.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121144/636b93109c7e80680e06f185jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1686" height="656"><figcaption>Measurements on the Indrawati on the evening of 15 June showed how the water level dropped and rose suddenly, indicating that the river was dammed upstream. Graph: DoHM</figcaption></figure>Elsewhere, at least 12 under-construction hydropower plants have been badly damaged. The worst hit was a 44MW project nearing completion on the Madi Khola in Kaski. The powerhouse and headworks were hit, while 15 excavators, tipper trucks and other vehicles washed away. Other functioning private and government hydropower plants in Central Nepal have either been shutdown as a precaution, or have been damaged.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-braces-for-monsoon-pandemic-double-hit/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-braces-for-monsoon-pandemic-double-hit/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1624001295575000&amp;usg=AFQjCNE1lKvl7D25KSM42Af5nLcpa0I1MQ">None of this was unexpected.</a> Anil Pokhrel of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA) had warned last week that weather modellers had predicted that this year’s monsoon would be above average in Nepal. What could not be forecast was how much more rain there would be, and which districts would be most vulnerable.Indeed, areas of the Himalayan rain shadow which usually lie north of the mountains and receive scanty rainfall, were also bad affected after continuous rain for 24 hours from Monday till Tuesday afternoon.Pokhrel of the NDRRMA had <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/a-disaster-resilient-nepal-is-possible/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/a-disaster-resilient-nepal-is-possible/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1624001295575000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGXs55ZclYXxCduK6EEyQl0Crdbfw">written in Nepali Times</a> last week: “<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/wildfires-ravage-nepal-mountains/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/wildfires-ravage-nepal-mountains/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1624001295575000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFbSPEJs2UX-K7QIAOTig451h4l5A">Wildfires that raged for months</a> burnt through forest-shrub cover, undermining the ability of mountain slopes to absorb rainfall and prevent soil erosion. This could potentially result in more landslides and floods.”<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121144/636b93129c7e80680e06f186jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2081" height="1260"><figcaption>Weather modelling by the South Asia Climate Outlook Forum last month showed that the 2021 monsoon would be above normal in most parts of Nepal. Source: NDRRMA</figcaption></figure>Last year was <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/deadly-monsoon-in-nepal-turns-deadlier/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/deadly-monsoon-in-nepal-turns-deadlier/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1624001295575000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEDVMmcO2dZ90k97FCI0k-ydO2hNw">the worst monsoon season</a> in the past two decades in terms of casualties: there were 500 major landslides, nearly 300 killed and 70 missing. Most of the landslides were, again, in Sindhupalchok and were blamed on <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-deadliest-monsoon-in-recent-times/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-deadliest-monsoon-in-recent-times/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1624001295575000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH4Q6nXwNjQTaXeXHnXeFPJ9JHJfw">poor and unregulated road construction </a>that disturbed the slopes.A cyclonic circulation over northern India means the rains have continued along the Himalayan foothills, and it is forecast to continue through the weekend. In Melamchi Bazar, there was fresh warning of inundation and people were evacuated on Thursday afternoon.As the monsoon progresses, much of the flood action will shift to the Tarai. There, too, this year the floods will 'wreak havoc'. And again, the submergence will largely be due to constriction of rivers by embankments, settlements along flood plains, perimeter walls that act as dams, and the denudation and destruction of the Chure Range.There was a flood of recrimination last year, many <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/in-nepal-either-too-much-or-too-little-water/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/in-nepal-either-too-much-or-too-little-water/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1624001295575000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFQI0_rIuaafLfQ4j-eHmMPV_JmRg">commentators lamented the lack of oversight. </a>But there has been no let-up in destructive road-building. This week, Nepal’s seven provinces passed budgets in which most of their revenue is going to be derived from quarry and sand-mining contractors allowed to unsustainably exploit natural resources. The government has allowed river valleys and the fragile Chure <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-nature-of-pandemics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">to be mined for stone exports to India</a>.With politicians distracted by one upmanship, and federalism not functioning because of micro-management by parties in Kathmandu, this season of disasters will be talked about for a while. Until next year’s monsoon.

Disasters in Nepal come in waves

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121140/636b920e9c7e80680e06f127jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1050" height="701"/><figcaption>Photo: MANISH PAUDEL/NEPALI TIMES ARCHIVE</figcaption></figure>The 2020 southwest monsoon was forecast to be 'normal' in Nepal, but it turned out to be more intense than predicted, and lasted much longer.Last year saw deadly landslides and floods across the country, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/deadly-monsoon-in-nepal-turns-deadlier/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">killing at least 400 people</a>, with Sindhupalchok, Baglung, Myagdi, Jajarkot, Kalikot and Bajura districts bearing the brunt of the disasters. Entire villages were buried and debris flows swept away rocks, trees, bridges and houses.We are now bracing up for the 2021 monsoon season, and it is predicted to be <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-braces-for-monsoon-pandemic-double-hit/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">much more intense than last year</a>. The South Asian Climate Outlook Forum has forecast that this year's monsoon precipitation will be 'above normal' almost throughout the country.This year's monsoon comes after the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-is-going-up-in-smoke/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">worst wildfire season ever</a>, and it could make this year’s monsoon even more destructive. Wildfires that raged for months burnt through forest-shrub cover, undermining the ability of mountain slopes to absorb rainfall and prevent soil erosion. This could potentially result in more landslides and floods.Then there is also the Covid-19 pandemic, that is now <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/in-nepal-virus-climbs-from-plains-to-mountains/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">raging across the hinterland</a>, and has further compounded the challenges in responding to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/in-nepal-either-too-much-or-too-little-water/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">monsoon-induced disasters</a>. Many local first responders have fallen sick during the second wave of the coronavirus, and those who are fit enough to conduct rescue and relief will find it difficult to maintain safe distance.Given all these considerations, it would be naive to hope that everything will be all right in the next few months, but the slopes are already saturated by pre-monsoon rains and this does not bode well.Here at the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA) we are committed to reducing losses in lives and livelihoods by:<ul><li>Preparing joint response during the pandemic to landslides, floods and water borne diseases with federal, provincial, local governments including District Disaster Management Committees for swift rescue and relief operations.</li> <li>Closely working with the Nepal Army, the Armed Police Force, Nepal Police, community groups, non-profits, development partners and the private sector.</li> <li>Improving Early Warning System and communicating disaster risks in more effective ways.</li> <li>Prepositioning search and rescue equipment including relief items.</li></ul>While preparing for this year's monsoon, we have also begun to look beyond 2021. With the right policies and actions, we can achieve our target of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/disastrous-management-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">substantial reduction of disaster risk</a> and loss of lives and livelihoods by 2030. It may sound ambitious, but we have a vision to pull it off in sync with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030).<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121140/636b920f9c7e80680e06f128jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2081" height="1260"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Through this year's budget program, the government has unveiled a 10-year campaign to build Suraksit Nepal -- a disaster resilient Nepal which will fast track actions to ensure safety in not just future earthquakes, but other hazards.The 10-year campaign to build a resilient Nepal will use our valuable learning and insights from <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/rebuilding-five-years-after-2015-quake/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">post-earthquake recovery and reconstruction</a>. In the first few years after the 2015 earthquake, Nepal received unfair bad publicity in the international media for sluggish reconstruction, but the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) quickly made up for lost time to achieve its mandate.The NRA’s completion of post-earthquake recovery despite the 2015-16 border blockade and the 2020-21 lockdowns is a model for other countries. Nepal is planning an international conference next year to share this success story.To wrap up the post-earthquake recovery, the government has allocated the budget to build 14,155 more classrooms, 105 health facilities, 195 <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/learning-from-nepals-past-to-rebuild-its-future/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cultural monuments</a> and 36 government buildings. Similarly, reconstruction and retrofitting of heritage buildings and completion of 39 integrated settlements also feature prominently in this year's budget.This year’s budget also allocates money for disaster preparedness, search, rescue, relief, and rehabilitation. This includes programs for disaster risk financing, helicopters for aerial firefighting, multi-hazard early warning system, multi-purpose robotic firefighting equipment in all provinces, advanced fire brigade, multi-seater ambulance, rescue vehicles and fire trucks at all local levels.This is the first time Disaster Risk Management has featured so prominently in Nepal's national budget. Disasters are traditionally seen as acts of god in Nepal, this is why there was little will to work on prevention.We now see a paradigm shift in this thinking. We are moving from response more towards <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-villages-learn-to-cope-with-climate-crisis/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">preparedness and risk reduction</a>. Rather than waiting for disasters to happen and spending financial, human and institutional resources on rescue and relief, our new emphasis in this decade is on disaster risk reduction and preparedness for effective response.As part of the 10-year campaign to build a disaster resilient Nepal, we need to plan, design and implement:<ul><li>Multi-hazard risk assessment and mapping</li> <li>Establishment of a national platform to communicate risk information</li> <li>Early warning system using all forms of media for all hazards</li> <li>Disaster risk financing with insurance of private houses and public buildings</li> <li>Integrated settlements for communities at high-risk locations</li> <li>Guidelines and system to reconstruct infrastructure damaged by disasters</li> <li>Revision of the building code to integrate key risks such as floods, fire and lightning and create incentives for implementation</li> <li>Reduction of Glacial Lake Outburst Flood risks</li> <li>Design standards to integrate disaster and climate risks for roads, water supply and irrigation</li> <li>Establishment of Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority at all seven provinces</li> <li>Establishment of Emergency Operation Centers at all seven provinces, 77 districts and key municipalities with high risks</li> <li>Building capacity of provincial and local governments to integrate risk considerations into development planning</li> <li>Restructuring of NDRRMA to include a Training and Research Directorate for disaster risk reduction</li></ul>Successful completion of these tasks will lay the groundwork for the 10-year plan. Its success will not only save lives and livelihoods, but also reduce recurrent economic damage and loss from disasters.Anil Pokhrel is the Chief Executive of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA).

A disaster resilient Nepal is possible

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181120/636be16b9c7e80680e083e49jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>All photos: PRITI THAPA</figcaption></figure>Many Nepalis based in the US and elsewhere closely followed the US election results. It was key concern because of what the election outcome meant for <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/us-visa-rule-leaves-nepali-students-in-lurch/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/us-visa-rule-leaves-nepali-students-in-lurch/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1605672375567000&amp;usg=AFQjCNESwYk7XrlbmaCtZPcDNUoEb5rZvw">immigration policies</a>.<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/ununited-states-of-america/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/ununited-states-of-america/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1605672375567000&amp;usg=AFQjCNErl8GT5h9cLJymZTecev7sb3DekQ">Donald Trump was bad news for immigrants</a>, including many Nepalis -- responsible for over 400 executive actions since he took office.“I did not care about the US election at all in 2016, but I followed the 2020 election very closely, refreshing my phone past midnight to check the results,” says 2020 Diversity Visa <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=17620" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D17620&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1605672375567000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH2jo75hteDaaM_R131Rcsdnic2WQ">(DV) lottery</a> winner Archana KC, who received news about her successful DV-outcome in May 2019. But on 22 June Trump banned migration to the US.Every year, some 55,000 winners from over 14 million applicants are selected for permanent residency from underrepresented countries, including Nepal. The number of  applicants from Nepal exceeds 600,000 annually. In 2018, 4,097 Nepalis were awarded permanent residency in the US through this program (see figure).<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181120/636be16e9c7e80680e083e4ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1616" height="950"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>On 22 April, Trump signed a proclamation suspending migrants who pose a threat to the US labour market during the economic recovery following the pandemic, which was further extended on 22 June till the end of the year. This was bad news for the 2020 DV lottery winners, as they lose their spot if they are not vetted for and receive their visas by end of September.The DV lottery program has been one of Trump’s target programs. He has said it brings the “worst of the worst to the US”. In September, the US District Court Judge ordered the Trump administration to resume processing of DVs for 2020 winners. Prior to the ban, 12,000 diversity visas had already been issued.Taking into account Covid-19 and its impact on the State Department's visa and consular processing capacity, the judge ordered a total of 9,095 slots to be reserved past the end of 30 September deadline, but it is unsure which of the 43,000 remaining winners will fall in that group.Stranded Nepali DV winners have built an online community and joke among themselves: ‘It is ironic that DV losers will never understand the pain of DV winners.’Many have given up hope, but KC is confident it will all work out with the Biden win. “We have come this far and all the effort and energy that has gone into this will not go to waste,” she says, recalling how she had to go around with her one week old daughter to get her a passport. “But just to be on the safe side, I have also applied for the 2022 lottery.”The other Nepalis impacted by the uncertainty are <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/temporary-protection-nepalis-in-trumps-us,4067" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/temporary-protection-nepalis-in-trumps-us,4067&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1605672375568000&amp;usg=AFQjCNE_VFpTUVNMdFzqGJmh7_ex6Xrj-g">Temporary Protection Status (TPS) </a>beneficiaries, a humanitarian program that allows those affected by war or disasters to temporarily live and work in the US. Over 411,000 individuals from 10 countries are eligible, including 14,549 Nepalis who benefited from the program after the 2015 earthquake. They include students and those overstaying their visas.Donald Trump has <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/us-extends-tps-for-nepal/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/us-extends-tps-for-nepal/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1605672375568000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHGKMLISrssmF0RTSzMUwm6--ITXg">tried to end this program since 2017</a>, citing countries have recovered from the natural disasters or violent conflicts that caused people to flee. He has faced a number of lawsuits including, one filed by a group of Nepalis and Hondurans. The TPS designation for Nepal is currently expected to be valid till 4 January, 2021.A recent survey by the group Adhikaar of 324 TPS Nepalis showed that 68.7% reported thinking about this issue once a day or more, 54.3% of respondents think about being deported once a day or more, and 45.9% reported thinking about how TPS would mean not being able to see their children grow up.Biden’s immigration plan includes protection of TPS from being returned to countries that are deemed unsafe, and to offer a path to citizenship to those who have been in the country for an extended period of time and built lives in the US.Ramesh is one such Nepali protected under TPS whose future hinges on these decisions. He says: “There is still a lot of uncertainty even under Biden, but we are hopeful that it will be extended given the positive signals from his campaign.”<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181120/636be1709c7e80680e083e4bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="1500">Things are especially difficult for those with young children who are US citizens, because they may have to leave children behind or stay on undocumented.Another prominent policy priority for Biden is to reinstate the Dreamers Program on his first day in office, that will allow children of undocumented immigrants to remain in the country. There are only 60 Nepalis under DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) out of the 643,560 active ‘dreamers’. Trump’s attempts to dismantle the program in 2017 was blocked by US Supreme Court.Aalok is one of the 60 Nepali DACA recipients, who has lived in the US since he was six. “I grew up thinking I am a US citizen as my parents did a very good job of hiding this from my sister and I,” Aalok told us on the phone.But once he found out, Aalok recalls the traumatic experience because of the constant uncertainty. “I am grateful for this program, but I disliked the term dreamers because it was anything but a dream, it was a nightmare, because your identity was often used as a political bargaining tool. It was particularly difficult when I had to get into college because I could not apply for any federal and state funding, but was lucky to get a merit-based scholarship.”When the networks called Biden’s win last week, Aalok was part of the car honking and dancing celebrations in New York. He says: “It was as if the whole world was breathing a collective sigh of relief.”Joe Biden also has a positive stance on skilled-visas like the H-1B, which has been contentious under Trump. Nepalis make up only 0.4% of H1B visa holders annually, which is dominated by Indians who make up three-fourths of the visa holders.The June proclamation also suspended the H-1B and other employment related visas, and  in October the Trump administration announced further restrictions including narrowing the definition of ‘specialty occupations’ to ensure applicants have the degree specific to the job they are applying for, and increasing the salary threshold.A Nepali with highly specialised programming skills in the Nepal branch of a small software development company says that he wrote the core platform and his managers considered him irreplaceable. He was offered a position  under the L1B specialised worker visa, where his work was appreciated and he moved to a wider role.“But after two years when it was time to get my visa renewed, it was rejected as my job description was deemed different than the original one,” he says. “The lawyers have filed a green card application, and hopefully things will move quicker under the Biden administration so I can go back to the US.”Another student, an OPT intern who was working for a multi-billion dollar e-commerce retailer applied for an H1-B, had his visa rejected and had to move back to Nepal.“The application was rejected over minor points regarding my salary, even though it was above the market rate, and because my area of study was not exactly computer science even though I had the programming skills,” he says.Biden’s plans regarding skilled visas include reforming the temporary visa system to establish a wage-based allocation process so H1-B allocations are linked to prevailing wages and establish enforcement mechanisms. He also plans to expand the number of high-skilled visas, currently capped at 85,000,  and elimination of the limits on employment-based visas by country.Last year, 7,409 Nepalis got naturalised in the US whereas 10,201 received permanent residency. The top five states hosting Nepalis are Texas, New York, California, Virginia and Ohio (see figures below). In addition, a significant number of Nepalis also take circuitous paths to reach the US when they do not have access to the legal routes like H1B and DV.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181120/636be1739c7e80680e083e4cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1392" height="900"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181120/636be1769c7e80680e083e4djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1414" height="1294"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Ramesh went <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/nepalis-enter-US-through-central-america,3083" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/nepalis-enter-US-through-central-america,3083&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1605672375568000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEKCwKVFc0zpyIcYQWcduClKW5iGg">through multiple countries</a> to make it to America. Before he took on the journey, he did not know much about Donald Trump except his obsession with the wall and increased enforcement at the border that would make his journey from Mexico difficult.It did not deter him. His journey to the US took 2.5 months, which is relatively short to other migrants taking this circuitous path from Kathmandu via Dubai-Russia-Spain-Bolivia-Colombia-Panama-Honduras-Nicaragua-Guatamela-Mexico-US. The trek through the forest in Colombia was harsh when they even passed bodies of migrants who had not made it.Ramesh and his friends took along six cans of Red Bull for energy during the forest trek. “It would make us feel energized to plod for another few hours,” he recalls. Besides the dangers of the jungle, they were also robbed, had nothing to eat and survived on bananas and water.He reached Tijuana in Mexico, but soon after jumping over a wall and entering the US, he was detained. “After the torture we had gone through, we did not have much to complain about the detention centre where we were given food, hygiene kits and clothes,” Ramesh recalls.After spending two months in detention, he was released on a bond of $14,000 as he waits for his asylum case. After over five months, he was eligible to apply for his work permit and social security card. Now, he dreams of bringing his family to the US someday if he is granted asylum. Nepalis form one of the top ten nationalities receiving asylum grants. In 2019, 627 Nepalis were granted asylum, placing it in the 9th highest nationality. (See figure below)<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181120/636be1799c7e80680e083e4ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1486" height="908"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>“I don’t really have an opinion on Trump or Biden,” says Ramesh. “As a royalist who was vocal against politicians of the current ruling party, I often got into trouble in my village back home. I came here to earn. The good thing about US is that if you are willing to work hard, you can earn and that is all I am focused on now. And as long as I can work, it doesn’t matter who is President.”But the work authorisation that Ramesh enjoys as he waits for his asylum hearing has been targeted by Trump who issued two new rules effective August requiring asylum-seekers to wait 365 days before applying for work authorisation instead of the 150 that Ramesh got, and removing the 30 day limit for the work authorisation applications to be processed. These rules were blocked by a judge in September.Between 2010-2019, there were 4,511unauthorised Nepalis who have been apprehended.  Of them, 1,124 were deemed inadmissible, while 951 Nepalis were returned or removed. Removals involve a formal court order, whereas returns are those who voluntarily go back to Nepal.Particularly notable is the removal of 169 Nepalis in 2019, a significantly higher number than previous years. (See figure below) Biden has committed to a 100-day freeze on deportations of unauthorised foreigners in the US after he takes office.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181120/636be17b9c7e80680e083e4fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1542" height="1060"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Hari is from the same village as Ramesh, and returned last year from the US. He spent six months in a detention center, and unsuccessfully fought his case with support from a Nepali lawyer.“When they were taking me to the airport, I thought that I was being transferred to another detention center, it was a surprise when I found out I was flying home but there was no other option,” he says.While in immigration detention, Hari wrote a diary with painful details of his journey to handle his emotions, but he decided to throw it away. “The plan was to turn the diary into a book, that I wanted to title ‘My Journey to America’ to dissuade other Nepalis from repeating my mistake, but no one wanted to listen to my advice in the village,” he explains.Hari sold his house to pay back the Rs5 million loan he took for his failed journey to the US, and says he is not surprised that his journey was unsuccessful. He says: “I am not sure if having Trump as President versus Biden would have made a difference, but had I landed in another state and not Louisiana, or got a more lenient judge, I may have been released.”Surya works in a California-based law firm and specialises in asylum cases, and confirms Hari’s hunch: “To get migrants out on bail from states like Louisiana and Georgia is very difficult. California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and DC have it slightly easier. But it also depends on the judges.”<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181120/636be17f9c7e80680e083e50jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The <a href="https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/judge2020/denialrates.html" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/judge2020/denialrates.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1605672375568000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEb5n1geHBnQ2sbNkVzckR9nrWmJA">TRAC project</a> maintained by Syracuse University shows the variation within and across immigration courts in judge denial rates, with a judge in New York who has a denial rate of 3%, and a judge in Houston with a denial rate of 100%.TRAC data shows that the median bond amount for Nepalis was $15,000 in 2018/2019 and $12,000 in 2020. Research shows that detained immigrants from Nepal have higher odds of being granted bond, but also pay more compared to other nationalities. In 2018, 79% of the 593 detained Nepalis were released on bonds, higher than the national average of 48%.Joe Biden has big plans from legalising 11 million undocumented workers in the US to expanding the skilled visa program, from reinstating DACA to protecting TPS beneficiaries. Many of these will impact Nepalis.But a lot hinges on the two Georgia senate runoffs in January, and the health and economic crises that have taken precedence over other topics. Many Nepalis, in America and in Nepal, however, remain hopeful of a kinder America under Biden.Some names have been changed.

Nepalis hopeful about Biden presidency

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109151116/636bb6449c7e80680e07bc4fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="475"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure>The heavy toll in landslides and floods during this year’s rainy season in Nepal have overshadowed another frequent disaster: lightning.This week’s incessant rains left 12 more people killed and nine are still missing in landslides, taking the total this monsoon season to 350 -- the deadliest in the past decade.However, the high death toll in landslides have masked the second biggest cause of death: lightning. Nepal’s high terrain, frequent thunderstorms and densely populated mountains make it one of the most dangerous places to be during a thunderstorm.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/lightning-kills-more-people-than-floods-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Lightning kills more people than floods in Nepal</a>, Sonia AwaleAlthough lightning can strikes anywhere, the most deadly ones are in the mountains and the most dangerous time is the pre-monsoon. However, there have been a surprisingly high number of lightning strikes during the monsoon this year.Four women were killed in a lightning strike in Kalaiya on 3 July while they were planting paddy in the fields. Four more were killed during a thunderstorm in Saptari district on 25 July.At least 62 people have been killed and 200 injured in lightning strikes so far this year. Of them, 32 have died and 81 have been injured in the three months since the onset of the monsoon.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/lightning-strikes-killing-people-in-Nepal,2940" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Forecast: more thunderstorms</a>, Om Astha RaiMeteorologist say such a high number of deaths from lightning strikes during the monsoon is unusual, and blame the increased intensity of storms on climate change. Nepal is the country with the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/lightning-kills-more-people-than-floods-in-nepal/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/lightning-kills-more-people-than-floods-in-nepal/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1601183868322000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHVuqGirCOCYnMYF5klzx9rsNka8A">most annual lightning fatalities</a> – more than the whole of North America.Besides human deaths, lightnings also cause colossal damage to livestock, with Jumla district leading in sheep and cattle killed by lightning every year. But even by Jumla’s standards, this year has been particularly deadly.On 25 August, an unusual series of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/lightning-kills-500-sheep-in-western-nepal/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/lightning-kills-500-sheep-in-western-nepal/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1601183868322000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHXBRFgOdag7xf5fUvxzoCouokPkg">freak electric storms killed 500 sheep</a> in several pastures in the mountains near Patarasi of Jumla district. Gauri Budha alone lost 40 of his sheep when lightning struck a shed where they were sheltering from the rain at 1 pm.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109151116/636bb6479c7e80680e07bc50jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="442"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Budha is devastated because he was rearing the sheep to pay for the education of his two sons. "After our sons started school 10 years ago, we paid for their education by selling sheep,” he said. “Now the elder son is studying science and the other son will graduate from high school next year. How will I pay for their education now?”Budha and other farmers whose livestock were also killed applied to the village municipality for financial assistance, but it has been a month and they have not received anything yet. The farmers traditionally take the sheep up to high pasture to fatten them up for sale during Dasain, when each sheep can sell for up to Rs20,000. That was when the storm hit the ridge where they were grazing. Kali Bahadur Rawat, Ward Chairman of Patarasi rural Municpality says that the loss have been devastating for the farmers because they do not even have the ewes to rebuild the herd.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109151116/636bb64a9c7e80680e07bc51jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="691"><figcaption>Some 500 sheep were killed in a series of freak electric storms in Jumla on 25 August. Photos: Krishna Shah</figcaption></figure>"It will be difficult to replace them right away, which adds to the burden of the farmers whose income have already been hit by the pandemic,” Rawat says.Rawat understands the loss because he himself has suffered the death of his own livestock during a thunderstorm seven years ago which killed 20 of his sheep. Since he is now the elected Ward chair, he says he feels the people’s pain and will expedite compensation for Budha and other farmers.In Kathmandu, the head of the Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority’s chief Anil Pokharel says that the Ministry of Home Affairs gives Rs200,000 in compensation when a person is killed by lighting, or Rs100,000 if a family home is damaged in a landslide, but for livestock the understanding is that farmers should have been insured.Chitra Bahadur Shrestha of the National Farmers Organisation says: “It is unfair that farmers are not compensated for loss of livestock to lightning. And it is the job of the government to tell farmers that they have to insure their animals.”Lightning expert Shri Ram Sharma says other calamities like landslides, floods and earthquakes get all the attention in Nepal, and despite the loss of life and cost to farmers, lightning is often ignored. “It is seen as an act of god, and since most of those affected are poor villagers, there is no policy to compensate the farmers for the losses,” Sharma explained. “For a country that has such a high exposure to lightning risk, there should be more study, research and thunderstorm forecasting.”The Department of Hydrology and Meteorology has installed a series of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/disastrous-management-in-nepal/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/disastrous-management-in-nepal/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1601183868322000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHMPrRuG_Pi3A90hMG-I7OSLPh7GQ">Doppler weather radars</a> in Surkhet, Hetauda and Udaypur to detect supercells and forecast major thunderstorm activity, but that information needs to get to farmers in time.

Abnormal rise in monsoon lightning in Nepal

Even in normal years Nepal has one of the highest fatality rates in the world from landslides and flashfloods. But even by that grim standard, 2020 has been particularly bad.[caption id="attachment_55055" align="alignleft" width="500"]<img class="wp-image-55055" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915118/636bb4a29c7e80680e07bbb3jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="281"/> The latest landslide in Nepal’s Sindhupalchok district on 13 September took the total in the district in the past two months to 105, and the nationwide death toll this monsoon to 334 this monsoon. Photo: Bajir Singh BhandariDisaster management experts were just totaling the number of fatalities <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-deadliest-monsoon-in-recent-times/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-deadliest-monsoon-in-recent-times/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1600256399940000&amp;usg=AFQjCNF7-yj-fOh1i7o9M3C57jZxEdbG4g">in this deadly season</a>, when news came on 13 September of yet another massive landslide in Sindhupalchok district 60km northeast of Kathmandu that may have cost 31 more lives.This followed huge slips on 8 July and 14 August that had killed a total of 58 people in the same general area of Sindhupalchok near the Chinese border. The total 334 deaths from landslides in Nepal this year surpassed the total of 247 in 2014, of which <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2014/08/02/a-flood-of-floods/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2014/08/02/a-flood-of-floods/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1600256399940000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEYDEXASLIJYv-ks5IFMsndwguMUg">145 were killed in just one massive slide in Jure</a> of the same district.[caption id="attachment_55054" align="alignnone" width="800"]<img class="wp-image-55054" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915118/636bb4a49c7e80680e07bbb4jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="578"> The Lidi landslide in Sindhupalchok on 13 August shows how road building on fragile slopes already made unstable by the 2015 earthquakes compounded the disaster. Photo: RSSThe disasters this year has been compounded by the Covid-19 crisis, which had killed 360 people as of Tuesday. A <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/heavy-monsoon-rains-forecast-for-nepal/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/heavy-monsoon-rains-forecast-for-nepal/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1600256399940000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGwUc01omOxbfVw0zQdWZPABo4OxQ">heavier-than-usual pre-monsoon</a> had already saturated the soil in the mountains of Nepal when the main rains arrived in July.But what makes Sindhupalchok so prone to landslides and flash floods? Disaster management experts point to the after-effects of the two major 2015 earthquakes which killed 8,890 -- 40% of them in Sindhupalchok. They also blame the region’s fragile geology, as well as the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/dont-just-blame-god-for-floods-and-landslides/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/dont-just-blame-god-for-floods-and-landslides/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1600256399940000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHx0G6y2fRo9smVf_mOr7H_eNGzNQ">haphazard digging of poorly-engineered rural roads</a> that destabilise the slopes even further.Five years later Sindhupalchok was still being rocked in Wednesday morning by 6M aftershock.[caption id="attachment_55050" align="alignright" width="400"]<img class="wp-image-55050" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915118/636bb4a79c7e80680e07bbb5jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="225"> The flashflood on a river in Dhorpatan on the night of 2 September, swept away 38 people, only 14 bodies were recovered.To be sure, other districts have also been badly hit this year. A flashflood in Dhorpatan municipality of Baglung district killed 14 people on 4 September, and there has been much loss of life in Myagdi, Tanahu, and Jajarkot after cloudbursts.In a paper, geologist Basanta Raj Adhikari at the Institute of Engineering says that between 1972-2016 a total of 5,190 people lost their lives in 3,419 recorded landslide events – 490 of them in the past three years alone.Relative to its population, Nepal has the highest fatality rate from landslides in the world. The country is one of the most-densely populated mountain regions in the world, and being the youngest mountain range, the Himalaya are inherently unstable as well as being battered by heavy monsoon rains from June to September.“There is a lack of prioritisation and willingness to see the depth of this problem,” says Adhikari. “We found that rainfall-triggered landslides are more than twice as likely to occur within 100m of a road, than landslides generated by earthquakes.”Nepal has built nearly 60,000km of rural roads in the past three decades, and the alignments of most of them are determined by local politicians, and not designed by engineers. They are also poorly maintained, and do not have proper drainage.‘In tectonically active mountains such as the Himalayas, natural landslides play a fundamental role in the evolution of the landscape. But there is a clear anthropogenic influence in the occurrence of landslides in Nepal,’ writes <a href="https://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1600256399940000&amp;usg=AFQjCNF-m6VvYGI3fMkhr2DCyIDbTUpabg">David Petley</a>, a professor at the University of Sheffield in the UK, and a global expert on landslides.<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-55044" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915118/636bb4a99c7e80680e07bbb6jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="622" height="415"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-55045" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915118/636bb4ac9c7e80680e07bbb7jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="622" height="415">VISIBLE FROM SPACE: The Bhote Kosi landslide in an image taken in 13 September 2013 shows smaller precursor landslips, and one taken on 18 September 2014 shows the size of the slide and the impounded lake on the Bhote Kosi. Photos: NASAIn 2017, Nepal imported 12,712 excavators, bulldozers and cranes, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/dozers-and-nepals-development/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/dozers-and-nepals-development/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1600256399940000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHM3-0ucCAvMvnE87HaeG4vGWBEwA">a 30% increase</a> from the previous year. One of the importers, MAW Earthmovers, sold the most JCB equipment in South Asia in Nepal, and the second-highest amount globally.Anil Pokhrel, who heads the recently established <a href="https://www.facebook.com/NDRRMA/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.facebook.com/NDRRMA/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1600256399940000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEBOGo5oX1e2jFDdxKOaGdaXkWhEQ">National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Authority (NDRRMA)</a> under the Ministry of Home Affairs, has been flying around the country with top politicians handing out relief packages to landslide victims. He says: “Everywhere we visited, local leaders blamed haphazard road construction for endangering their lives, but there is pressure from the communities themselves for road access.”There is also evidence that many local leaders are themselves contractors and own heavy earth-moving equipment which they are keen to rent out to themselves. These poorly built roads are often triggers for landslides.Watershed expert Madhukar Upadhya says: “It is not local individuals putting pressure to build roads, it is mostly a nexus between local leaders and contractors.”Geologists say that many villages in Nepal’s mountains are located along the path of old landslides, but people tend to forget quickly and start to grow crops on the debris field and soon new settlements rise on high-risk slopes.Recent landslides also show that many villagers get a false sense of security from the belief that planting trees above the village will protect them from landslides. While community forests have benefits, they are not a panacea.[caption id="attachment_55051" align="alignright" width="450"]<img class="wp-image-55051" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915118/636bb4ae9c7e80680e07bbb8jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="207"> Forest cover does not necessarily prevent landslides as this photograph of Durlung of Parbat district in June shows. Nine people were killed in the disaster.“Heavy monsoon downpours cause mass failure of inherently unstable slopes on a large scale and at depths far below the root zone of trees,” says Upadhyay. “Forest cover, while desirable, plays little or no role in stopping such mass wasting. We covered slopes with forests but forgot about soil management, leading to more destructive landslides.”Indeed, photographs of many of the landslides this year show deep scars that start in forested slopes tumbling down to settlements below. In Durlung village of Parbat district, it was a densely forested slope that failed in June and swept away a settlement killing nine people. Forests also did not protect Jajarkot villages from monsoon cloudbursts.“Nobody would imagine that such a heavily-forested slope could have failed, we should remove this deeply-rooted belief and put other appropriate measures to control landslides,” said Pokhrel, who visited the area after the event.Landslide early warning systems (LEWS) do exist, and have saved lives in pilot projects in Nepal before. The solar-powered equipment can measure land deformation, soil moisture content on slopes and trigger a siren after it crosses a threshold.“This is not rocket science,” says Adhikari. “It can be installed easily, and it will not cost more than a minister’s chopper visit after each of these landslides.”[caption id="attachment_55053" align="alignnone" width="800"]<img class="wp-image-55053" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915118/636bb4b09c7e80680e07bbb9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="600"> Landslides scar a slope in Jajarkot after a cloudburst in July. Twelve people were killed.More than 90% of landslides in Nepal occur during the monsoon between June and September, peaking in July and August. Several <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S167498711400036X" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S167498711400036X&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1600256399940000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGLROni0PbrAIGDnL8j6kIykvhlXQ">studies</a> suggest the climate change is causing freak storms and more frequent cloudbursts in the Himalaya, increasing the vulnerability of people who live in the mountains.A version of this report appeared in <a href="https://www.thethirdpole.net/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.thethirdpole.net/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1600256399940000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHPHxfBDRpmSHSz5_oDfnrNjB0JlQ">thethirdpole.net. </a>

Deadly monsoon in Nepal turns deadlier

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110914118/636ba64b9c7e80680e073711jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1122" height="810"/><figcaption>Aftermath of the landslide that occurred on Friday morning in Lidi of Sindhupalchok district. All photos: RSS</figcaption></figure>This year’s monsoon season has been disastrous for Nepal, in the past two months 301 people have been killed in landslides all over the country. The death toll has now overtaken 2018 during which 292 people were killed in landlsides.The worst-hit has been Sindhupalchok district, which has seen its most grievous loss of life since the 2015 earthquakes which killed 3,570 people. This was the district with the highest death toll with 40% of all fatalities.Sindhupalchok received a doubly whammy: first from the 7.8M quake on 25 April 2015, and then the 7.3 aftershock on 12 May. Eighty percent of all homes in the district were destroyed.The deadliest landslide in Nepal this year was in Lidi of Sindhupalchok, where a landslide on the night of 14 August sliced through the village killing at least 36 people. Twenty-two bodies have been retrieved so far, the others are presume buried under the rubble.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110914118/636ba64e9c7e80680e073712jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1766" height="1165"><figcaption>So far 22 bodies have been recovered but search is still on going for 17 people still missing from Lidi landslide.</figcaption></figure>Most of the houses had been destroyed in the 2015 earthquakes, and had only recently been rebuilt with government grants. The villagers killed were all from the Tamang community, who represented a third of all fatalities in the 2015 earthquakes as well.Ward officials in Lidi said they had sent a written appeal to the district administration a week before the landslide asking for the village to be relocated because of the danger of landslide. Engineers from the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) had included the village in a Category 1 list of villages vulnerable to landslides.However, the NRA has said the landslide occurred because of inappropriate drainage in the terrain above the village.“The post-earthquake survey did say the village was at risk, but engineers had concluded that there was no need to relocate,” said the NRA’S Chandra Bahadur Shrestha. “They had suggested that an embankment wall be created to deflect a possible landslide.”Shrestha said water was seeping through cracks that had appeared during the earthquakes, and there was no proper system to drain the water to the nearby stream. “The landslide occurred because the local government did not take steps to drain the water,” Shrestha added.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110914118/636ba6529c7e80680e073713jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1800" height="1350"><figcaption>Landslide in Jajarkot district following heavy rainfall last month.</figcaption></figure>Geologists point our several factors for this year’s monsoon being so deadly. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/heavy-monsoon-rains-forecast-for-nepal/">Heavy pre-monsoon showers</a> had already saturated the top soil on steep slopes when the main rains arrived in mid-June. The monsoon itself has been more vigorous than usual with precipitation 30% above average in most places.In additional there has been <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/dont-just-blame-god-for-floods-and-landslides/">haphazard and poorly engineered road construction,</a> which has disturbed drainage on slopes. The landslide and flood on tributaries of the Bhote Kosi that killed 23 in Jambu village of Sindhupalchok in June started out as a slope failure next to a newly-built road.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110914118/636ba6559c7e80680e073714jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1050" height="591"><figcaption>Locals and rescue party search for missing people in Jajrkot landslide last month.</figcaption></figure>Heavy rainfall and roads have made the slopes <a href="https://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2020/07/24/nepal-2020/">already destabilised by the earthquakes five years ago</a> even more fragile. Sixty-six of Nepal’s 77 districts have been affected this year by landslides and floods, and the worst-hit is Sindhupalchok, east of Kathmandu.One year before the earthquakes, the district suffered <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2014/08/02/a-flood-of-floods/">a massive landslide</a> that wiped out three villages near Jure and blocked the Bhote Kosi River, killing 145 people and causing huge damage to roads, bridges and hydropower plants.Myagdi in central Nepal has also been badly hit, with three landslides on 10 July killing 27 people. Tanahu and Parbat districts have also suffered numerous landslides.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110914118/636ba6579c7e80680e073715jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="426"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110914118/636ba65a9c7e80680e073716jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="426">Landslide in Myagdi in central Nepal.“There is light to moderate rain forecast for the rest of the week, but because the slopes are already saturated the danger of landlisdes will persist throughout Augusts,” says meteorologist Shanti Kandel.She adds: “There is a low pressure system over the Bay of Bengal that is moving northwestwards and this could bring more rain later this week.”The NRA has listed 4,829 settlements in the 14 districts affected by the 2015 earthquakes that are in high risk zones, and although the landslide risk has been mitigated in most of them, 500 villages are still in vulnerable slopes.It says villages on slopes more than 30 degrees are relocated, but even in villages with gentler gradient irrigation water and storm drainage needs to be properly managed to reduce landslide risk.

Nepal’s deadliest monsoon in recent times

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141148/636baf9a9c7e80680e07805djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1800" height="900"/><figcaption>Nepal Police rescue villagers in Kailali district parts of which were flooded following a heavy rainfall. All photos: RSS</figcaption></figure>Those drawing attention to the water crisis in Nepal usually focus on the problems associated with the drying-up of wells and springs, and access to water for irrigation and drinking, particularly in the mountains.While this constitutes one aspect of Nepal’s water crisis, at present the news is all about floods and landslides. This is nothing new for Nepal -- the monsoon comes every year, and there are <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/after-the-coronavirus-the-deluge/">annual floods</a>, and landslides at <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/flood-of-recrimination/">great cost of lives</a> and livelihoods.There is too much water, in the wrong places, and land is washed away, submerged, ruined. And <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/preparing-for-floods-during-a-lockdown/">it is getting worse</a>. There significant changes in the patterns of rainfall, with pre-monsoon rain increasing and falling in greater intensity and post-monsoon rain decreasing.And there are a growing number of  ‘extreme events’ <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-villages-learn-to-cope-with-climate-crisis/">associated with climate change</a>. Even after four decades of program and projects funded by loans from foreign banks and ‘development agencies’, there seems to be no effective response at national, provincial or local level.After floods in the 1980s, there was a call for more effective responses to so-called ‘natural disasters’. This gave rise not only to new ‘aid’ programs and projects, but also to new institutions for more effective response.The Natural Disaster Relief Act was passed in 1982, amended in 1989 and then again in 1992. In response to floods in Chitwan in 1989 the Grass Roots Institute for Training and Services-Nepal' (GRITS-Nepal) was established by a group of students from Rampur College of Agriculture, which became the precursor to Rural Reconstruction Nepal (RRN).Japan has been in the forefront of ‘disaster prevention and response’ in Nepal since 1991 when it helped establish the Water Induced Disaster Prevention Technical Centre in Pulchok. The main objective was ‘to promote prevention/mitigation of water induced disasters in Nepal and to strengthen capability of HMG Nepal to cope with water induced disasters through technology development, provision of training and establishment of a database’.The collaboration continued into a second phase when, in September 1999, the two governments agreed to launch a Disaster Mitigation Support Program for a further five years.Many other foreign agencies, governmental and non-governmental, have also provided funding and technical assistance for ‘disaster prevention’, ‘disaster mitigation’ and ‘disaster response’.During the early 1990s’ UNDP/UNDRO/UNDTCD provided technical as well as financial assistance in improving the institutional capacity of the Ministry of Home Affairs, the focal point of disaster management in Nepal, through their International Support to Disaster Preparedness and Relief Plan to strengthen institutions and develop human resources.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141148/636baf9d9c7e80680e07805ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="480"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141148/636bafa19c7e80680e07805fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="480">Landslide in Baglung cuts off the district's roadways.In the 1980s and 1990s, humanitarian relief was provided on a significant scale, whenever there was a ‘greater-than-usual natural disaster’ by agencies of all kinds – but always ‘after the event’.In 1996, a National Action Plan consisting of four main sub-plans for disaster preparedness, disaster response, disaster reconstruction and rehabilitation, and disaster mitigation was presented in the form of a matrix indicating priority item groups, activities, time schedule, and executing agencies. It seems that it was not implemented.For the Nepal Country Report for 1999 (produced under the direction of the under-secretary at the Ministry of Home Affairs, which continued to be responsible for ‘disaster response’) admitted that Natural Disaster Relief Regulations or NDRR (that is, the provisions guiding disaster relief action by different agencies) had still not been put in place.The Act itself does not describe the functions and duties of all district disaster management related agencies, the problem of cooperation, coordination and mutual understanding between various district disaster management related agencies are seen. Consequently, sometimes, disaster victims do not get immediate, efficient and effective rescue and relief services.Delayed relief works often brings very serious and unpleasant results. Duplication of relief works have also happened due to the absence of dialogue and mutual understanding among disaster management related agencies.In addition, some of the district disaster management related agencies try to shift their responsibilities to the other as there is no clear-cut job description in the Act. The immediate formulation of NDRR is therefore  necessary, where disaster management-related agencies have ToRs.Recognising this inadequacy, and also the insufficiency of focusing only on ‘relief’ after the event, the Ninth Plan (1998-2002) underlined the need to strengthen disaster management capability. It proposed the prevention, mitigation and reduction of natural disasters through more advanced geological, hydrological and meteorological technology.It stressed hazard mapping, vulnerability assessment, risk analysis and early warning system with trained technical staff. The Plan suggested that  policies and regulations concerning disaster management should be amended.In response to a suggestion by the UN, a high level National Committee for the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR) was created, to be chaired by the Home Minister and represented by other officials. A National Action Plan (NAP) for disaster preparedness, response, mitigation, rehabilitation and reconstruction, was to be formulated.The Nepal Centre for Disaster Management (NCDM) was established in February 2002 and proposed to work in ‘a pragmatic way in the field of disaster risk management to transform Nepal into a country safe from disasters’, working with all ‘stakeholders’ including the ‘vulnerable local communities’.It undertook a number of projects over the next decade, funded by the UNDP, DfID, Save the Children, Care Nepal International, OXFAM GB, and others. Most were on a small scale and many involved workshops and inputs into documents, including annual national workshops on ‘pre-monsoon disaster preparedness’ and a contribution to the National Report on ‘Disaster Risk Reduction and Management in Nepal’ in 2005.Even towards the end of the decade, however, the NCDM reported that ‘presently, Nepal lacks a comprehensive National Policy and Act on disaster risk reduction’ and that it had collaborated with OXFAM GB to draft a new National Policy which was submitted to the National Planning Commission, and an Act on Disaster Management which was submitted to the Ministry of Home Affairs’.In 2009, a National Strategy on Disaster Risk Management (NSDRM) was developed as were disaster preparedness and response plans at district and local VDC levels, with emergency operation centres also established. But there was little progress over the next decade in developing effective procedures to enable an effective response to annual flooding and landslides across the country.Most tellingly, when the earthquakes of April-May 2015 occurred, it took six months to create a National Reconstruction Authority (NRA), and has taken more than five years to re-build the homes and lives damaged and destroyed across the areas most affected.Despite all the policies, program and projects, floods and landslides continue to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/heavier-than-usual-monsoon-in-nepal/">damage and destroy property and livelihoods</a>, and to ruin the lives of tens of thousands every year. The reasons include political inertia and corruption, inadequate institutional development, lack of appropriate technical and human resources for effective preparation and action at the different levels, from national through provincial and district down to local levels.The contribution of development agencies has been costly and wasteful, and largely inappropriate and ineffective. There is now another Disaster Risk Reduction National Strategic Plan of Action (2018-2030). What are the chances that this will prove more effective?<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/GUEST-COLUMN/positive-alternatives-to-federalism,350">David Seddon</a> has undertaken research and consultancy on development issues in Nepal over several decades.Ranjan Prakash Shrestha, PhD,  has research experience in climate change and indigenous knowledge and practices related to urbanization and sustainable water resource management.

In Nepal, either too much or too little water

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121120/636b8cf29c7e80680e06b324jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>Hanging new prayer flags near the old chorten and the newer post-earthquake Memorial Wall in Langtang village on the final day of Losar celebrations in March 2020. Photo: AUSTIN LORD</figcaption></figure>Five years ago, I was in the Langtang Valley with my parents at the moment <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/langtang-destroyed-in-earthquake,2205" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">when the earth shook</a>. The earthquake released a massive, roiling avalanche weighing over twelve million tons of material from the slopes of Langtang Lirung, carrying half the force of an atomic bomb. The earthquake brought <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/langtang-before-after-earthquake-nepal" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">loss beyond words or comprehension</a>, and even now, so much remains unspeakable and unknowable. Surviving those unstable moments and all that followed has changed my life and my view of this world, forever.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/five-years-after-avalanche-langtang-is-locked-down/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Five years after the avalanche</a>, Langtang is locked downSince that day, I have returned to Langtang again and again, and I have remained engaged with <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/%20Langtang-rising-after-april-25-earthquake,2610" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">post-earthquake recovery</a> and the Langtangpa community <a href="https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya/vol37/iss2/12/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">in a variety of ways</a>. It has been an immeasurable privilege to see and feel <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Australian%20-researchers-after-nepal-earthquake%20,3393" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Langtang come back to life</a>. The Langtangpa have a great deal to teach us about strength, courage, resilience, endurance, and the ways we might carve out places for ourselves in a world full of uncertainties.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121120/636b8cf59c7e80680e06b325jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="252" height="128">Disasters can shift, warp, and fold our sense of time in complex and unexpected ways. Anniversaries and other moments of mutual reflection, ceremony, or commemoration can help us mark time and reorient ourselves in the wake of disaster. In regathering ourselves, we might attempt to restore some kind of temporal sovereignty, if only for a moment, or perhaps give ourselves over to the uneven flows of time.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121120/636b8cf79c7e80680e06b326jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption>Earthquake survivors waiting to be evacuated in Ghodatabela on 26 April 2015. Photo: AUSTIN LORD</figcaption></figure>Five years after the 25 April earthquake, fundamental questions about the time of disaster persist and recur. How and when does a disaster truly conclude, and for whom? In what ways do we navigate the tangled temporalities that shape the aftermath of disaster, or the multiple pasts of our present moment?As all Nepalis know, we do not all reckon or account for time in the same ways. And so, the ‘anniversary’ of the earthquake is itself is referred to as ‘April 25’, ‘Baisakh 12’  and ‘Bö da sumbatsebadün’ in the Gregorian, Nepali, and Tibetan calendars. This time around, each date falls on a different day, and so the anniversary is (perhaps, rightfully) distributed over an entire week.<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/langtang-before-after-earthquake-nepal" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Langtang lament</a><a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-reincarnation-of-a-holy-valley/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Reincarnation of a holy valley</a>, Clara BullockThe following reflection – written based on dozens of conversations and interviews with my Langtangpa friends over the years – retraces some of the moments and feelings that have gathered around each of earthquake anniversaries in the Langtang Valley over the past five years:<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121120/636b8cfb9c7e80680e06b327jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption>Langtangpas and foreigners gather at the edge of the avalanche zone to commemorate the first anniversary of the 2015 Nepal earthquake. April 25, 2016. Photo: AUSTIN LORD</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121120/636b8cfe9c7e80680e06b328jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption>The lamas of Langtang lead the ceremonies for the April 25 observation of the earthquake anniversary in Langtang. April 25, 2016. Photo: AUSTIN LORD</figcaption></figure>1. Awash in uncertainty and emotion, without homes, the people of Langtang gathered. Most of them had only recently returned to the valley, disoriented and struggling to begin again. Foreigners came from around the world -- those who had lost their family members, survivors, and other supporters -- bringing a feeling of solidarity and care. A tangle of people and torn lives, gathered in the lap of the mountain, at the edge of the scar the avalanche created in the landscape. On the morning of 25 April, we gathered at the foot of the avalanche, in front of a recently built mani wall inscribed with the names of the deceased and the phrase ‘forever in our hearts’ written in the eleven languages. Every nerve was raw. A moment of silence at 11:56 AM, and then twelve minutes to read all the names of the dead, as I was asked to do.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121120/636b8d019c7e80680e06b329jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="427"><figcaption>Inside Langtang Gompa the night before the earthquake. April 24, 2015. Photo: AUSTIN LORD</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121120/636b8d049c7e80680e06b32ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="427"><figcaption>Destroyed Langtang Gompa and Tibetan Buddhist Texts in November 2015. Photo: AUSTIN LORD</figcaption></figure>A video projection of old Langtangpa songs and photographs. Labourers walked by carrying building materials. Both of the gompas in the Langtang Valley had been destroyed, and there was no place to conduct a puja on the earthquake anniversary. A few days earlier, on April 13, the Langtangpas had gathered for a puja that Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche conducted in a field above the village. On the same day, a few Langtangpas also gathered for prayers at the Yellow Gompa in Kathmandu one last time. One turn around the sun, and many of us were still broken. A year of grief and absence, followed by gathering and presence. Time flowing around our varied and imperfect attempts at beginning.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121120/636b8d089c7e80680e06b32bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="960" height="538"><figcaption>Ceremonies for the 2nd earthquake anniversary inside the newly built community centre in Langtang village. May 2, 2017. Photo: Ayako Sadakane.</figcaption></figure>2. Small houses, a community center, a larger gathering of Langtangpa. “We had made some progress rebuilding, but it was still a very emotional time.” Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche came to Langtang again on the Tibetan earthquake anniversary and conducted a serkhim puja for the protection of the village. “This puja gave people some mental support, it helped us deal with all the tension.” Rinpoche also conducted a puja at Seto Gompa in Bouddha that day, since there was still no gompa in Langtang. Tearful speeches in the community centre, bittersweet reflections on change. A large prayer wheel spun inside the recently built Memorial Stupa, sending prayers to the heavens for all the deceased in their new lives. The herders moved more confidently this year, as a Japanese NGO had helped them buy zomos to replace some of the animals that had died during the disaster. The prayer flags of the prior year were taken down and burned, new flags hung. The rhythms of the valley were slowly layering onto each other again.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121120/636b8d0a9c7e80680e06b32cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="402"><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121120/636b8d0f9c7e80680e06b32djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="359"><figcaption>Ceremonies for the third anniversary of the earthquake in the newly rebuilt monastery at Kyangjin Gompa in April 22, 2018. Photo: Ayako Sadakane.</figcaption></figure>3. The three-year period of collective mourning came to an official and imperfect end. The gompa at Kyangjin had just been rebuilt, Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche came again to lead the ceremonies in this beautiful new space. Most of the official work of reconstruction had been completed, and the cheese factory had also been rebuilt, so people finally felt some sense of material comfort. The night after the puja ceremonies, some people were singing, for the first time since the earthquake. A few days later, Drukpa Rinpoche, who had lived here earlier in his life and also in one of his past lives, returned for the first time in many years. After these ceremonies, many people said that they could see that everyone’s hearts were lighter, there was a little more hope. A few months later in July, the Langtangpa gathered in Kyangjin Gompa, some excitedly and some tentatively, for the Dukpa Tse Shi, the first major festival celebration since the earthquake. It was a powerful moment of transition and rejuvenation, one which many Langtangpa referred to as “a time for singing again.”<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121120/636b8d129c7e80680e06b32ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption>Kyangjin Gompa Under Construction in July 2017. Photo: AUSTIN LORD</figcaption></figure>4. A different kind of ceremony, and a return to more conventional ritual rhythms. The community organised a tsok puja and a seven-day reading of the Kangyur (a set of one-hundred and eight texts considered a core part of the Buddhist canon). There was laughing and dancing in the evenings when the ritual labour was done. There were more tourists in the valley. Carefully, the Langtangpa continued the slow work of reweaving their lives back into more familiar tempos. Sometime a few weeks later, the last of the compacted ice still remaining in the avalanche zone finally melted. We celebrated Dukpa Tse Shi again during the summer, and this time some of the archery competitions were held. Everyone said this year’s festival was better than the last, but also that the festivals of the coming year would be even better, like they were before the earthquake.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121120/636b8d159c7e80680e06b32fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1440" height="900"><figcaption>An international group of people who lost loved ones in Langtang, foreign survivors, and Langtangpas gather online at 11:56 AM NST on April 25 2020. Photo: Austin Lord</figcaption></figure>5 . The time of the virus, a kind of bardo all its own. On 9 March almost all of the Langtangpa gathered in Langtang village for a public celebration of the final day of Lhosar, for the first time since the earthquake. A large puja was planned for the 25 April with Rabjam Rinpoche and many other high lamas, but it had to be cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “We were hoping that this would be the last collective puja for the earthquake anniversary.” A large group of foreign mourners and survivors, as well as some Langtangpa – some of who had cancelled their plans to return to Langtang for this anniversary – gathered virtually at 11:56AM on 25 April. We read the names of the dead, tried to honor the memories of those who died, and reflected on time gone by – sharing some of ourselves again. People called each other throughout the week, seeking connection across social and physical distance. Meanwhile, the lamas of Langtang began preparations for their own puja on the anniversary according to the Tibetan calendar next week. At the time of writing, they did not yet know how many Langtangpa community members would be able to attend given the ‘lockdown’. “We hope that we will be able to host the Rinpoches later this year, on an auspicious date, or maybe on the sixth-year anniversary,” they said. “Whenever we are able to do this puja, then that will be the last ceremony for the earthquake, maybe... possibly.”<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121120/636b8d199c7e80680e06b330jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption>Langtang Avalanche Zone. November 2015. Photo: AUSTIN LORD</figcaption></figure>The Langtangpa, like many of us, are both looking backward and looking forward. Amid the confusion and liminality of the pandemic, there are some silver linings. Many of the children and youth of Langtang are back at home, reconnecting to their place, speaking their mother tongue. In the past few weeks, many people in Langtang have again begun planting fields that have lain fallow since the earthquake. Looking out at these fields and the children working alongside their parents, some people are saying: “पहिले जस्तै लाग्छ” (it feels like before).In Langtang, as elsewhere, the temporalities of disaster and aftermath are woven together with long-term processes of social and intergenerational change, dreams of progress, memories of fading pasts, and the cycle of births and deaths. The wind comes. Rivers and glaciers carve through mountains forever rising and falling apart. Pasts and futures flow together and eddy around us, today and every day.Austin Lord is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Cornell University and a Fulbright-Hays DDRA Fellow who conducted his dissertation research in Nepal in 2019-2020. He would like to thank all of his friends and sources in the Langtangpa community who helped him piece together this narrative, for sharing their experiences, their words, and their time.

disasters