Nepal Floods and Landslides Claim 43 Lives

KATHMANDU, Nepal, July 16, 2002 (ENS) - Heavy monsoon rains that started late Sunday night have triggered massive landslides in two villages in the mountainous Khotang District of eastern Nepal about 300 kilometres (200 miles) east of the capital, Kathmandu.

Some 43 people are known to have died, and 150 others are missing. Rescue workers have recovered 40 bodies, the Himalayan News Service reported today.

Nepal river in a district just west of the floods and landslides. (Photo courtesy Medium Hydro Power Study Project)

Communication between Diktel, the district capital, and Kathmandu has been hampered since the telecom tower in Udaypur was destroyed in armed conflict with Maoist rebels several months ago.

Today, rescue workers reached the affected area some 20 kilometres north of Diktel. The Defence Ministry says it has rescued 11 injured people and airlifted them from the two villages to Kathmandu for treatment this afternoon.

But now it is no longer possible to search for victims due to heavy rains and fog. On Monday, heavy rains and fog prevented an army helicopter from landing with medical supplies, tents and other relief materials for people left homeless in the remote area.

Nepal Red Cross volunteers are among rescuers continuing to search for survivors after the landslides covered the villages of Sungdel and Dipsung.

The affected villages are at least six hours by foot from the town of Khotang and with no road network or landing strips, rescue teams of the Royal Nepal Army and the Nepal police have been dropped into the area by helicopter.

"It is particularly tragic as most people were asleep in their homes at the time. In some cases there was nobody for us to help as whole families were killed," says Dev Ratna Dhakwa, secretary general of the Nepal Red Cross.

In one incident 19 people died immediately as the top of a hill slid 300 metres down on to the village below, says Dhakwa. Miraculously, he says, two people were pulled out alive and are undergoing treatment at a local health centre.

In 1993, Nepal experienced a devastating flood in which 1,336 people perished and nearly 500,000 people were affected.