The village that is one-hour steep climb from Sankhuwa river is littered with landslides at 26 places. The ground has cracked while soil has not stopped from sliding till date. "The landslide has displaced us," rues Tek Bahadur Kulung.
Land of 38 out of the 59 houses and four houses were swept away by last week´s landslides. Thirteen persons of three houses went missing while the members of the fourth family luckily escaped. Nine persons are still missing.
"The dead were lucky in a way as they did not have to pass through a fate like ours. Those of us who have remained alive don´t have anywhere to go and live," says Ramjari Rai.
The people of Sikdim were in love with the village and their beautiful houses made by woven bamboo with solar cells on rooftops for illumination. Eight well-to-do households migrated after a landslide in 1996 but those who could not afford to migrate had no option.
Living in Sikdim, which grows maize and millet as major crops, is not that bad as most of the households earn over Rs 100,000 a year by selling chiraito and lokta — that is used for making Nepali paper. They did not migrate just because of chiraito and lokta but, ironically, they became vulnerable to landslides due to the clearing of trees to grow chiraito.
The landslide has swept away the main road to Sikdim and the pipeline of water causing its scarcity in the village. The only school in the village — Himalisiddha Primary School — is also at risk of being swept away.
Sixteen families have been displaced while 22 more are in danger. Each displaced family was given 50kg rice, salt, edible oil, beaten rice and noodles as emergency relief by the District Natural Disaster Rescue Committee. Similarly, Nepal Red Cross Society provided a tent, three blankets and a set of crockery to each of the 16 displaced families while each of the 22 families under threat were given two blankets, one tent and a set of crockery.
The local administration is preparing to shift the threatened families to an open space in Majhkharka and teams of Nepal Army and Nepal Police have been staying in Sikdim for the past week for the purpose.
But locals insist that the government should shift them elsewhere and not Majhkharka which they say becomes uninhabitable after Kartik due to frost and snow.
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