As the landslide remained active and was headed steadily towards the settlement area, the government sent a team of three experts to access the level of risk and submit a report. The experts spent 45 days in the village and concluded that the settlement was unsafe for habitation. They found several transverse cracks up to 30 cm in width in the landslide area. Laprak is situated entirely within the landside area.Moreover, two major landslide scarps were observed some 300 meters upslope and 20 meters downslope of the main village.
Laprak was at the epicenter of the magnitude 7.8 earthquake of April 25, which killed about 9,000, injured over 30,000 and destroyed over 700,000 houses in the 14 badly affected districts. Entire settlements in Laprak collapsed in the earthquake. A team of engineers from the Department of Urban Development and Building Construction (DUDBC) under the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD), which assessed the risks of disaster in the aftermath of the earthquake, declared the settlements unfit for habitation and suggested to the government to relocate the village.
The DUDBC team, which included geologists, has suggested relocation of 193 settlements in the 14 districts including Laprak. But none of these villages has relocated yet. On the contrary, the displaced victims have started returning to the the spots where their houses used to stand and some have even started rebuilding at these origional spots.
"Had the government provided us any alternatives, we would not return to the risk zones," Marsingh Gurung, a local of Laprak, complained. He said that the displaced are frustrated by the slow response of the government. "We waited 10 months under tarpaulin tents, enduring rain and the chilling winter," he said adding, "How long do we have to wait for relocation?"
Like Gurung, a lot of displaced quake victims have returned to the sites of their original houses and started rebuilding.
Former chief executive officer at Nepal Reconstruction Authority (NRA), Dr Govinda Pokhrel, said that quake victims become impatient as the government failed to deliver on its promise. The government failed to meet hopes, he said, adding that it should have sent out engineers and geologists to study the risk zones minutely. That would have encouraged the quake victims to wait for some more time.
Madhu Sudhan Adhikari, acting secretary at NRA, concedes that the quake victims have been frustrated by the slow government response. But he claimed that NRA has been doing its best to respond as soon as possible.
Related story
Phone users have paid Rs 1.59 billion to rebuild Dharahara
