The Laprak residents in dire straits compounded with the shortage of adequate relief materials a month after the earthquake, appealed to Minister Gurung, who reached the site for inspection purpose, to extend utmost support at the time of grief.
"Do not look to return in a hurry," earthquake victim Marsingh Gurung said adding, "Understand our woes and stay with us." Gurung lamented that the political leaders who have visited the village betray their eagerness to turn back.
"We have left our livestock in the jungle," Gurung said. "Our crops have withered and we are forced to live under tarpaulin tents and there is no food," he confided.
The appalling state of the Laprak residents could have moved a stone when they told the visiting Minister the conditions of the elderly, lactating mothers and children living under the makeshift tents were even worse.
The locals have been living in Gopsidanda hill after a total of 550 households in Laprak were leveled by the destructive quake. The Gopsidanda itself has suffered deformation and is teetering perilously on an edge of an imminent landslide. "There are no sources of water in this hill," said Santosh Gurung, who is former VDC Chairman of Laprak.
"The difficulties are only adding up," he said, further explaining that when rain lashed the makeshift settlement people had to pin down the tarpaulin sheets to prevent rain from sipping inside. The Laprak locals have been living in a single unit with tarp tents pitched on the hill. Laprak itself was a single village comprising nine wards.
"We have accommodated the lactating mothers and elderly people in places where gust does not blow," Gurung said.
Gurung further said the villagers could not use firewood for cooking as the rain had dampened it. "How long are we to survive by eating raw noodles," he questioned. He demanded the government for good tents. Gurung said the wind and rain were tearing the tarps apart and making life difficult.
Gurung stressed the government must end its practice of making promises and not delivering. The villagers presented the Minister with a verbal memorandum for urgent supply of food commodities before the onset of monsoon.
In response, Minister Gurung pledged for immediate relief packages, temporary shelters and even promised to send youths abroad for foreign employment as a sustainable solution. "I have come to Laprak to understand the problem," he said, adding, "I will not only listen to your problems, but take immediate steps to resolve the issue by broaching the subject in the meeting of the Council of Ministers."
The Laprak locals have already apprised Prime Minister Sushil Koirala, Former PM Dr Baburam Bhattarai, Nepali Congress Chief Whip Chinkaji Shrestha and NC Central Member Surendra Raj Pandey of their tribulations.
Another Laprak local, Pushpa Gurung said the sick had no medicines while all were forced to live without communication and electricity further aggravating their plight. RSS
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