The floods has displaced 90 households in Helambu of Sindhupalchowk and 86 in Melamchi till now. Five were killed and at least 20 are still missing. Melamchi has been flooded again on Saturday which has washed away 60 tents in Helambu and Melamchi. Similarly, the bridge connecting different wards of these two municipalities has also been destroyed. The road network with all the wards of Melamchi-7, 8, 9 and 10, Helambu-1, 2 and 3, Panchpokhari Thangpal and Indravati has been damaged.
Locals say that they can live in the flooded houses if the government helps to change the course of the river. And now they are complaining that the government has not listened to them. Chandra Bahadur Tamang, a hotelier in Melamchi, complains that the government has not taken any initiative to protect the settlements that have been damaged by the floods on July 22 and 23. He urges the government at all three levels to protect the settlement.
The flood-affected people are still at distraught after the flood destroyed their houses and agricultural lands built with millions of rupees. Laxmi Shrestha of Melamchi says that the river is eroding the remaining four acres of her land in the name of property. Shrestha lamented that even the local government did not listen to the flood-affected people.
The affected people are outraged saying that no initiative has been taken to build permanent or temporary housing. Sagar Shrestha, leader of the Melamchi Reconstruction Concern Committee, said that the local government could have saved the settlement in a week if it had wanted to.
The flood victims are running a campaign to save their settlement by raising money themselves. They complain that the government has ignored them. However, Chief District Officer Arun Kumar Pokharel said that no work could be started in the lower region without studying the flood-prone area Bhremathan. He said that the work done in the coastal area would not be effective without managing the mountainous region.
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