Displaced twice, Dang flood victims losing hope

Published On: August 19, 2017 07:54 AM NPT By: Devendra Basnet


DANG, August 19: Shambhu Badi of Bakharaiya, Tulsipur, lost his house to Babai flood three years ago. He had few belongings inside the house, which were also swept away. For a few days he slept under the open sky at the river bank. Later the government provided him a tarpaulin. He made a small hut with the tarpaulin. That was all he had in the name of shelter till recently. Last Saturday, another flood hit the area and his hut was swept away. 

After losing his hut and being displaced again, he has taken refuge in a fellow villager’s house which is also near the river. This has left Badi panicking. Already hit by floods twice, he has become phobic to the sight of the river. “I feel that I will be washed away. Babai is deadly. The water level has not gone down,” he said. 

Badi is surviving at the mercy of others. If they do not give him food, he will starve. Jyoti Nepali of the same village has no different story. Three years ago, the flood entered her house while she was asleep. She had saved her and her children with a great effort. However, since then, life has never been easy for her. This time, just like Badi, she has also lost her makeshift hut. 
“The hut and everything inside it were swept away by the flood. We have been displaced once again,” she lamented. 

Shambhu Badi is surviving at the mercy of others. If they do not give him food, he will starve. Jyoti Nepali of the same village has no different story. 

There are dozens of families like Badi and Nepali who have become homeless for the second time. The earlier flood had taken a toll on their normal life. They were struggling to make life better. Unfortunately, the recent floods pushed them to their limits. “

“We are so hopeless. We do not know what to do now. There is no place to live and no food to eat,” Nepali said. 

The first flood had hit them on August 14, 2014. It had wreaked havoc in several parts of Dang. This time, the terror is similar. The victims lament that the miseries brought in by the flood three years were yet to overcome when they were hit by the calamity again. 

According to Nepali, those who had enough land and other property could still fight back for normal life post flood. But people like him who were extremely poor have become hopeless. 

Patali Chaudhari of Bakhariya does not blame the government. She feels that it’s God’s wrath that they are facing. “We have been displaced by the flood again. We do not know where to go now. God has become so merciless,” she said. The mother of three had erected a bamboo hut where she was managing to keep her family safe and send her kids to school. Now the flood has shattered her hopes and dreams. “I feel that I will not be able to send my children to school again.

How am I going to build another house?” she wondered.

According to Subash Dangi, a ward member of Tulasipur Sub metropolis, this is the second time that the Babai River has rendered many people homeless. “They are not being able to cope up with the situation. But relief and rehabilitation still looks far away,” he said. 


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