Dozens of houses at risk due to heavy rain in Baglung

Pre-monsoon rainfall in Baglung has caused losses of millions of rupees in Baglung.

According to the Meteorological Forecasting Division, monsoon that had entered the country last Sunday eight days before the tentative date is in the course of spreading across the country. But heavy rain since last Tuesday in Baglung, the district in Gandaki Province, has already displaced dozens of households, damaging infrastructures worth millions of rupees.

Rain triggered flood and landslide have posed constant threat to 35 households at Galkot municipality while 19 families face a landslide risk at Jaimini municipality 9 and 10 following soil erosion from the flashfloods.

The district received heavy rains from Wednesday evening to Thursday morning. The rains have caused havoc with the lives of people throughout the district.

The Baglung folks are still haunted by the memories of devastating rainfall in the district last year. They fear whether the situation would reoccur this time too, said one Shiva Shris Magar of Jaimini-10

 Magar is concerned over the safety of the community during rains. As he said, he is not happy with the road development projects undertaken in the locality as he believed that they have put the settlement at additional risk of calamities. “There are roads above and beneath the settlement and the rainwater gets accumulated in the settlement, forcing us to leave the area,” he complained. .According to him, 17 families at Sipring and Toribari of Jaimini -10 are urgently required to be shifted to a safer area/

Three families have been already displaced and other houses are promptly needed to move out of the settlement. The families of Balbir Nepali, Lal Bahadur Nepali and Man Bahadur Nepali have been already displaced by the disaster and two houses at Painyuthanthap are struggling to cope with the disaster risk.

Flood has eroded the road of Galkot and Jaimini municipality which were upgraded by investing millions of rupees in the current fiscal year. The flood has also made a huge destruction to blacktopped roads.

The rainfall has made huge loss in Galkot municipality-1, 2, 3 and 4.

Chairperson of Galkot municipality-1, Lal Bahadur Rana, said that three buffaloes and a goat of Amar Bahadur Khadka of ward no 1 were killed when landslide buried them. Different settlements—Bhungkhani, Gahate and Kafalthuta are at the risk of landslide. Landslide has also buried a house of a local Bijayi Khatri.

Rana shared that most of the house of the then ward no 3 are at the risk of landslide and small and big landslide have occurred behind every houses.

 Mid-Hill Highway remained obstructed on Thursday due to landslip and vehicular movement resumed from Thursday evening after continuous initiatives, said Spokesperson of Galkot municipality, Hemant Bhandari.

Similarly, Thirty-five houses of Narethanti bazaar of Galkot-1 as well as houses surrounding to it are also at the risk of flood and landslide. The flood has buried the playground of a local Mahendra Secondary School.