"It is hard to remain survive the cold and it is even harder to save kids from cold. To overcome these hardships, I have been forced to take loan to make warm shelter for my family," said Ramesh Rumba of Namtar, who has been living under a tent since his house was destroyed by the Gorkha earthquake on April 25.
"We were told that the government would do something for our resettlement. However, even after nine months, it has failed to offer assistance to help us built permanent shelter,” he said adding, “I had to seek loans from the local landlords after my family members started getting ill because of the growing cold inside the tent.”
Rumba, father to two sons and a daughter, has taken loan of Rs 40,000 from a local landlord. The children are complaining of headache, nausea and sleep deprivation these days, he said.
Binod Muktan a local of Devkot, Makwanpur also has similar woes. After the earthquake rendered him homeless, he shifted to a cowshed along with his family. He complained that the government has reached out to him at all after the earthquake. "I have been living in my neighbor's cowshed. The government does not care about us. I took a loan of Rs 30,000 to make better shelter for saving my family from the cold," said Muktan.
Besides the cold, Muktan has another trouble that keeps his family always under threat. As the cow shed, where they stay, is not fenced around, there's always danger of encounter with wild beasts. "Sound sleep has hardly been in luck since the earthquake. Along with the cold, fears of wild animal attacks always torment us. We always live in fear," stated Muktan elaborating that he plans to build the new shelter using the wooden planks from the old house and by investing the acquired loan.
The earthquake had claimed 33 lives and injured 229 in the district which is home to 420,000 people, according to the 2011 census. Local administration data claims that the quake had fully destroyed 18,192 houses and partially damaged 16,000 houses.
As the news of death of their likes due to cold started making rounds, more and more victim families have started looking for loans to build better shelters for their family. "Cold is killing people living under tents. We could be the next victims. We are really worried," said Rumba. "Though getting money was not easy, we had to do that as it's a matter of our family's survival," he added.
Despite taking loans, they are not confident if that will be enough for them to construct a warmer shelter. "Though I am not sure if this amount will be sufficient for erecting the new shelter, it is all I could get,” Rumba said adding expressing deeper concerns on paying back the loan. “The government has not kept its promises and considering the extent of assistance of help, I don't hope that any help will ever come our way even in the future. In such case, I don't know how I am going to payback the loan.”
Meanwhile, Chief District Officer (CDO) of Makwanpur, Ram Prasad Thapaliya informed that the quake victims in the district are being provided 'cold relief' since two weeks. "We are distributing Rs 10,000 per family as cold relief. That's for warm clothes. We had received Rs 60 million from the government for this purpose," he said. He further added that the budget would be distributed only in 15 most affected VDCs and Thaha municipality.
According to Thapaliya, even though the number of quake affected families is far bigger, only those from the higher altitudes are going to get the amount. "We know that many have lost their home to the earthquake. However, we have received budget for warm clothes only for families living in the areas above 1500 meter high from the sea level."
Caption: Binod Muktan, a resident of Devkot village, Makwanpur works on erecting a better shelter with wooden planks extracted from his quake-destroyed house in this recent picture. His family has been presently living in cowshed where along with the increasing cold, they have been constantly tormented by fears of wild animal attacks.
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