By Gopal Sharma
KATHMANDU, Sept 1 (Reuters) – Nepali rescuers built temporary bridges to reach remote areas and dug through the ruins of hydropower projects in the Himalayas to rescue close to 300 trapped workers, nearly a week after devastating floods left a trail of destruction across the country’s towns and valleys.
About 600 people remain stuck in several devastated hydropower stations that have become the focus of rescue efforts, while Prime Minister Balendra Shah said over 11,000 people have been rescued across the affected region and power and communication lines had been restored in some areas.
At least 939 people have been killed in the destruction, Shah said in a late-night social media post.
“Thousands of citizens have lost their homes, families, loved ones and property,” he said.
“The government understands the immense pain they are enduring. The path ahead is to support them through this suffering and help them return to normal life through rehabilitation.”
Rescue teams had managed to restore road networks to Nuwakot, one of the worst-affected districts, facilitating rescue operations and distribution of relief material, Shah said.
A glacier collapse triggered a deluge of ice, rock and mud which swept through the impoverished nation’s border region with China, posing a massive challenge for Nepal’s six-month-old government.
Police official Bipin Regmi said a search team recovered 24 bodies from a house in Betrabati village in Nuwakot district.
“We are reaching new areas and recovering bodies,” Regmi told Reuters.
Aid worth more than $42 million had poured into the country after the disaster, Shah said, and the government expected the contributions to increase.
Neighbours India and China, between whom Nepal is wedged, were helping with rescue efforts, including building bailey bridges to reach remote affected areas.
RESCUE EFFORTS FOCUS ON HYDROPOWER STATIONS
Shah said 279 workers had been rescued from hydropower projects so far where authorities estimated that close to 1,000 people were trapped.
Pictures and videos shared by rescue teams showed earth-moving equipment digging and shovelling mud and rocks under lights in the dark of the night as workers watched. Soldiers used torchlight in a big pit they had created to look for space to get into one tunnel.
There has been a boom in hydropower projects in Nepal since the turn of the century as the mountainous country sought to take advantage of its Himalayan water resources to address chronic domestic power shortages and exploit prospects for selling electricity to southern neighbour India.
Hydropower projects in Nepal’s mountains need tunnels to carry water through the steep terrain, allowing developers to exploit the sharp elevation drop between Himalayan rivers and powerhouses to generate electricity.
CHINA BLAMES GLOBAL WARMING
Shah said the catastrophic event signalled the growing risks that the Himalayan region faces.
“The region must therefore remain vigilant. The time has come for us to strongly raise before the international community the disasters we are experiencing as a consequence of climate change,” Shah said in his post.
Last week’s flood was “caused by glacier instability under the long-term effects of global warming”, China’s state broadcaster said on Monday.
(Reporting by Gopal Sharma, writing by Shilpa Jamkhandikar, editing by Saad Sayeed)
Comments