By Gopal Sharma
KATHMANDU (Reuters) – Nepal closed schools for three days after landslides and floods triggered by two days of heavy rain in the Himalayan nation killed 151 people and left 56 missing, officials said on Sunday.
The floods paralyzed traffic and normal activity in the Kathmandu Valley, where 37 deaths were recorded in a region where 4 million people live and in the capital.
Officials said students and their parents faced difficulties as rain-damaged university and school buildings needed repair.
“We have urged the authorities concerned to close schools in the affected areas for three days,” Education Ministry spokesperson Lakshmi Bhattarai told Reuters.
Some parts of the capital reported rainfall of up to 322.2 mm (12.7 inches), raising the level of its main Bagmati River up to 2.2 m (7 feet) beyond the danger mark, experts said.
But there were some signs of respite on Sunday morning, with rains easing in many places, said Govinda Jha, a meteorologist in the capital.
“Some isolated showers are possible, but heavy rain is unlikely,” he said.
Television footage showed police rescuers in knee-high rubber boots using pickaxes and shovels to clear mud and recover 16 bodies of passengers from two buses swept away by a massive landslide at a location on the key route to Kathmandu.
Weather officials in the capital attributed the storms to a low-pressure system in the Bay of Bengal that extends over parts of neighboring India near Nepal.
Haphazard development amplifies the risks of climate change in Nepal, say climate scientists at the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).
“I have never seen flooding of this scale in Kathmandu before,” said Arun Bhakta Shrestha, environmental risk officer at the centre.
In a statement, he urged the government and city planners to “urgently” step up investment and plans for infrastructure such as underground stormwater and sewage systems, both of the “grey” or engineered type and the “green” type. or nature-based type.
The impact of the rains was compounded by poor drainage due to unplanned settlements and urbanization efforts, construction on floodplains, lack of water retention areas and encroachment by the Bagmati River, it added.
However, the level of the Koshi River in southeastern Nepal has started to fall, said Ram Chandra Tiwari, the region’s top bureaucrat.
The river, which causes deadly floods in the eastern Indian state of Bihar almost every year, had been running above the danger mark at a level almost three times normal, he said.