Majority of locals in northern Gorkha are from indigenous groups who speak their own languages. Engineers said they are having difficulties collecting data in Barpak, Laprak, Manbu and Uiya VDCs.
"These VDCs mostly consist of elderly people and they only speak their own languages," said engineer Sujan Regmi, who has been collecting data from Laprak. "As we have difficulties understanding them, we are forced to spend a lot of time in one household. It's very problematic," he added.
In the first phase, engineers were sent to 32 VDCs. Then engineers were sent to the remaining 21 VDCs and two municipalities last Saturday. Engineers have yet to reach seven remote VDCs of northern Gorkha.
Social mobilizers accompanying the engineers work as interpreters.
"It would normally take half-an-hour to collect data from a household. However, if locals do not understand Nepali language, it can take up to one-and-a-half hours," informed Bhavi Raj Gurung, a social mobilizer deployed in Laprak.
Engineers also complained that many earthquake victims have left their original places and migrated elsewhere and this has caused problems in collecting data.
However, Kailash Babu Shrestha, mediator of the firm that has been assigned the task of collecting earthquake data, denied that the data collection process has become difficult. "Engineers are not facing any problems as social mobilizers are locals. If there are no social mobilizers, we deploy local teachers to work as interpretersIn case we don't have local social mobilizers, we deploy local teachers to go with the engineers. It can be time-consuming but data collection process has been proceeding unhindered," he said.
The government had started data collection through electronic means after more than one member from the same household were found holding quake victims ID card.
Related story
NMA calls for immediate action to save hunger-striking Nicolas
