Dozens of people have been killed and thousands displaced in the wake of floods and landslides in the Terai region of southeastern Nepal, the country’s leading disaster relief agency said on 30 July.
The Nepal Red Cross Society (NRCS) said the death toll could rise as rescue teams are still unable to recover the bodies of victims. A total of 213,127 people have been affected, including over 3,000 families who have been displaced, it said.
The government has reported 72 deaths, according to the Central Natural Disaster Rescue and Relief Coordination Centre.
Relief workers from government bodies and aid agencies, including local non-governmental organisations (NGOs), have been intensifying their humanitarian assistance and rescue efforts in areas most affected by the torrential rains since 10 July.
 People are desperately in need of food and shelter, and we are desperate to get as much financial aid as we can to get our humanitarian assistance to the families. |
“My children haven’t eaten for two days and we don’t have any place to stay,” said Risi Chaudhary, who walked nearly 30km from his flooded village of Parsapatauli and finally reached the small town of Gauribas in Mahottari District, about 130km south of the capital, Kathmandu. Hundreds of families in the district have been made homeless and their food stocks, farms and other means of livelihood destroyed by floods.
Chaudhary was lucky he managed to escape, unlike thousands of villagers in many parts of the country, where people have been stranded without food, clothes and shelter, as they are unable to cross surging rivers and flooded areas, according to local NGO Caritas-Nepal. Many are living in the open, on the roads or taking refuge on roofs of government schools.
Getting worse
“The situation has worsened and is getting more complicated. Urgent help is needed on a daily basis,” said Mukti Subedi, an official from Caritas-Nepal, which is trying to get aid to victims in the worst affected five districts in the Terai region - Dhanusa, Mahottari, Banke, Bardia and Kailali.
A major concern among aid agencies and the authorities is the spread of diseases. There is a lack of safe drinking water due to a lack of water purification facilities, and there is a problem getting medicines to victims, especially children with diarrhoea, as roads in both affected hill and low-lying districts of Terai have been destroyed.
Appeal
Local relief agencies have been appealing locally and internationally for increased financial aid to help victims. Relief is expensive to deliver, requiring helicopters in many affected areas, said NRCS specialists.
The government on 29 July announced an emergency relief fund of US$780,000, but this will not be sufficient to help all affected families, said NGOs, who are concerned that if funding is not available soon, the ability to provide relief aid may dry up.
“We have launched our appeal internationally… and we are hopeful that we will get a positive response soon before more people get killed,” said Kafle.
The Terai region, a mainly lowland area in the south and southeast of the country adjacent to the Indian border, is the country’s industrial and agricultural heartland, but has recently been afflicted by ethnic conflict and political tensions.
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