Lalitpur, Oct 2: Evert night, Nita Sijali lays out jute sack on the muddy and dusty floor of her relative’s hut, hoping that her family could sleep comfortably.
Much to the dismay of Sijali’s family of four, displayed by last Friday’s flood (September 27) at Nakkhu River in Kathmandu, they struggle for restful sleep amidst the relentless barking of dogs and buzzing of mosquitoes.
The most pressing concern for Sijali is the health and safety of her two children.
Nowhere to go after their hut was washed away by the raging Nakkhu River, Sijali’s family has taken a refuge in their relative’s hut. Nights here are spent amid discomfort and danger of stray dogs since the door in the hut does not have a proper lock, lamented Sijali.
“There is no difference between us and the dogs,” she said, adding that after the flood swept away everything, they sleep with the stray dogs in the hut. “While the dogs could be shooed away, I worry about safety and health of my kids.”
Hailing from Sindhuli district, the Sijali’s family had been living off on the bank of Nakkhu Khola working as a labourer. After losing everything to the flood in Nakkhu Khola, they are not able to return home nor do they find a safe shelter.
After the flood in Nakkhu River swept away everything, they are left with only a single piece of cloth in their bodies. “Having found refuge in relative’s house has been the biggest blessing since the fateful Friday’s flood,” she said with heavy heart.
The flood began with soaking of their courtyard on the first day, Sijali recalled the harrowing incident. Assuming that the wet courtyard would dry up in some time, they went back to sleep, only to be awakened to water gushing into their settlement.
“We assumed that it would not rain much that night,” she recollected, adding that the river water gushed into their settlement taking everything with it.
Nar Bahadur Sijale Magar, a resident of Phulbari Marga-25 in Lalitpur, shares similar plight. His family of six has been displaced and stranded following the flood in Nakkhu River.
‘Where to live?’ ‘Where to eat?’, he asked, expressing his worries and anxiety and precarious conditions in the wake of devastating disasters. “I am not afraid of light all day long but when the night falls, fear about my family’s safety begins to engulf me. I cannot sleep at night fearing another flood.” Magar’s family, who had been living in the riverside of Nakkhu River, is struggling to make ends meet despite working all day long as a labourers post the flood.
Echoing similar sentiment is Chatur Ram Majhi who is currently residing in a temporary shelter at Nakkhu River. For him, the greatest concern is shelter than food. “The ward office provides food but they do not address our need for shelter,” whined Majhi.
“If it rains again, we have nowhere to go,” he said worryingly. He is left with only a torn pair of trousers and a shirt and hopelessness, he confided. Having relied on relative for shelter, he vented his frustration over lack of immediate relief response on the part of the government.
Criticizing stakeholder agencies’ ‘hallow promises’, he demanded earliest relief response to the flood survivors like him. He indicated towards the possibility of health issues suffering the flood survivors like him in coming days if the government does not timely pay attention to this issue.
Anand Das’s worries differ from those other flood survivors mentioned above. The resident of Adinath Marga in Lalitpur fears the safety of his belongingness now after his mother and he was airlifted to safety after the house was flooded.
“Even though we are safe, the belongings in the house are not safe,” he said, explaining/recalling, “We could not close the door after the flood in house. Everything is covered by mud and silt. Even a gas cylinder has been stolen the same night.
According to him, the flood survivors like his mother and him were still living in panic and thus emphasized urgency for the concerned authorities for earliest rehabilitation of those displaced by flood.
Similarly, Sarswati Basnet from Ramechhap district was digging out the ground hoping to retrieve her missing belongings in the rubbles of the flood when a dozer was clearing off the flood debris.
