The heavy rains of Thursday came as a surprise to most valley residents. Even though there have been no causalities of the sudden 41.6 mm downpour, it did make life difficult for many Kathmandu residents. Floodwater entered houses, damaging merchandise on the bottom floor. Entire houses were swept away in some squatter settlements. The rains were also responsible for the disturbance in mobile communication networks throughout the evening, and for the sudden blackout all over the valley at night. But most of all, the water affected transportation in the valley. With water almost waist high in some places, submerging two wheelers and deeply inconveniencing four-wheelers, people were stranded, forced to spend hours at the same place. It did not help that when they were finally able to start out, flotsam and jetsam made navigation almost impossible. Those going outside the valley by land were doubly inconvenienced: first of all the buses started late fearing the landslides that inevitably follow heavy rainfall in Nepal, and then they got stuck in the landslides anyway. No less than seven flights were obstructed, because the visibility was less than half of what was required for landing.
Sudden weather changes have caught the residents of the valley off guard one too many time. Nowadays, with sophisticated meteorological equipment, it is often possible to predict weather with a certain degree of accuracy. But only after the rainfall did we come to know that after Thursday, total rainfall in the month of May added up to 137.6 mm, significantly higher than the average of 123.6 mm. It is time that sudden weather changes stopped surprising the people of the valley, and proper information was disseminated through mass media, so that people can be better prepared for the inevitable and take steps to protect their life and property.
Even though weather changes cannot be avoided or solved altogether, a lot of precautionary measures can be taken to reduce the damages inflicted by such changes. Currently, the under-construction roads in Kathmandu pose severe transportation problems to valley denizens. The situation is worse during rains when muddy roads turn into puddles that impede transportation for hours, sometimes days, after rainfalls. Two wheelers are especially vulnerable to losing their balance and slipping into these puddles. Kathmandu Municipality needs to prioritize completing the construction of these roads, if for no other reason than to make transportation safer during rainfall. Also, despite Kathmandu Valley being at a high altitude, some lowland areas like Jamal, Teku, Kalanki, Koteshwor, etc, are traditionally inundated during rainfalls, because there are no proper outlets for water in these areas. The roads should be constructed in such a way as to provide a quick outlet to the water, before it can collect and swamp residential areas. Embankments need to be made alongside Kathmandu’s rivers so that every time it rains, the squatters around them do not have to scamper for safety. Let us hope that one day the residents of Kathmandu Valley do not have to fear sudden rainfall, and getting from one place to another during these times will be less stressful than the triathlon of swimming, walking, and running that it resembles now.
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