It was a visit to Sunsari district of Nepal which was flooded in August 2008 when the Saptakoshi River, one of the largest rivers in the country, broke its embankment and started flowing directly into human settlements. 75 percent of the river’s water swept through half a dozen villages, displacing thousands of people, mainly women and children, and killing countless livestock in Nepal and neighboring India. Many humanitarian agencies responded immediately with relief supplies and assistance for those in need, and more than two years on, World Vision is still continuing its Protracted Relief and Early Recovery project in nutrition and education which seeks to improve the health of children and help them return to schools and madrasas. Displaced people have now returned from temporary shelters, some to their old houses but some are homeless and resettled in neighboring villages as the village they once lived in no longer stands. It is unrecognizable. Nothing remains but grey sand where once there was green vegetation, and where cash crops such as sugarcane and jute grew alongside food crops aplenty.
This place called Nahar Chowk in Paschim Kusaha Village Development Committee (VDC), en route to a village where I was heading caught my attention rather than the place I had planned to spend the day and carry out interviews with some beneficiaries of our recovery project, much further on. I found myself more interested in stopping to see what lay further beyond the sand-filled village, but as far as my eyes could see or my feet could take me, there was nothing to capture, until finally I saw a boy hopelessly trying to find a patch of green for his cattle. I often get the urge to talk to new people and this time too, I asked the boy passing by where he was from, but he seemed as lifeless as the place itself and just walked away, herding his cattle. His indifference towards me questioned my being there. Was I an outsider? Or was he still numbed by the disaster that struck his village? This boy seemed to be a reflection of the many children in the area who are alive to see the villages they once lived in, are no longer a reality. They had not just been physically affected. The impact was visible otherwise too.
As I left to continue for my task at hand, all I could see and feel through the windows of my hired vehicle was quietness and remoteness, with few repeated scenes of children with cattle in search of the greens. This was what I visualized deserts to be like and here I was in the fertile Eastern region of Nepal asking myself if the topography of Nepal was welcoming a new feature, a desert in the middle of plain lands. I waited patiently till we crossed the entire stretch of this sand filled village. I later found out that it was not only this VDC but two others namely Sripur and Haripur which offered a sight like this one, of barren land filled with sand in place of the once lush green villages. This stark contrast of the past and present was evident in the adjacent villages which were not affected by the floods. They exuded life in all its greenness. It seemed to give me a real and living picture of what Nahar Chowk looked like before the embankment of Saptakoshi River collapsed to inundate many surrounding villages and render them infertile.
Often we see what disasters do to humans, but rarely do we see the after-effects it has on human settlements and the environment. Once-fertile land can be turned into a lifeless desert in just a matter of time and it may never recover, despite any human intervention.
Often we see what disasters do to humans, but rarely do we see the after-effects it has on human settlements and the environment. Once-fertile land can be turned into a lifeless desert in just a matter of time and it may never recover, despite any human intervention.
Many natural disasters are unavoidable and unpreventable but the one that struck Sunsari in August 2008 could have been avoided had the government authorities formulated a timely strategy to build good embankments and stop one of the largest rivers from spilling over to destroy human settlements. Sometimes the causes of disasters are man-made and as such can be avoided with better planning and infrastructure in place. Being a country prone to disasters, we need to be mindful of the ones that can be prevented and work on minimizing the numbers that affect not only people but also the environment. Although World Vision´s recovery project has been working with children and their families, no human or organizational effort will bring life back to lifeless sand–filled villages in Sunsari, a testimony to the scars of disaster.
Writer is Communications Coordinator at World Vision International Nepal
alina_shrestha@wvi.org
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