Around 7,500 people died, tens of thousands of houses destroyed and tens of thousands of people have been displaced so far. The quake destroyed the historical sites, temples, monasteries, and shrines on that day.
Nuwakot is one of the hard-hit districts. The quake shattered the dreams of many people and damaged the beauty of Nuwakot district. It also ruined the seven-storey Nuwakot Palace, one of the prominent heritage sites in the district, so as to shatter the beauty of the district. The Palace was one of the major destinations to the internal and external tourists.
The historic the then nine-storey Nuwakot Palace was regarded as the north main gate to the Kathmandu Valley for the Gorkha army's assault in Kathmandu during the national unification campaign led by the late king Prithvi Narayan Shah. Nuwakot was also popular as the main trading route with Tibet.
It is said that King Prithvi Narayan Shah commissioned the construction of this palace and labourers from Lalitpur in the Kathmandu valley were employed for this in 1762 BS. It is still regarded as a model of architecture. The powerful quake in 1934 damaged the top two-stories of the palace which was renovated downsizing it to seven-storey building. Unfortunately, the building has developed many cracks in this April 25 earthquake and hundreds of aftershocks after that, leaving it tottering, said Pushker Sharma Rimal, Coordinator of the Nuwakot Palace Area Protection Committee.
King Shah had used Nuwakot district as the second capital after he conqured Nuwakot in 1801 BS and built the nine-storey palace and ruled his dominion from here before his army captured Kathmandu.
Similarly, the wall of the Bhairavi Temple of the Nuwakot district is also collapsed up to the ground floor while the whole temple tilts north-east so that I have not been offering worships there, said Hariman Dangol, who has been performing Puja for last 64 years.
He added, "A large number of visitors were at the temple on April 25 when the earthquake struck. I came out of the temple just by finishing the regular Puja. All of a sudden, the buildings nearby and other objects nearby me began to shake. The temple collapsed in a minute."
Around 400-year-old temple is a famous heritage site in the district.
Besides the destruction of palace and the temple, the ancient houses in the district are also an attraction to people. But, they all would collapse if the reconstruction of the palace, temple, and ancient houses were not done before the rainy season. There is little chance of saving them from further damage, said Coordinator Rimal. RSS
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