Shankar Shrestha, Nepal News Bank
Dhading. Syauli Bazaar of Arughat, adjacent to about 58 families lived. In the local language, it was called ‘squatter settlement’. There was a different vibrancy in this settlement till the morning of Ghatasthapana. Some were decorating their houses. Some were preparing to keep jamara. Some were busy shopping, while some were busy gathering things for Dashain. However, the rainless flood in the Budhigandaki river has erased the name of the squatter settlement.
Bishnu Maya Ghale, who was swept away by the flood, said, “I had decorated the house only yesterday with the help of fields. I bought everything from oil, rice to soap. The house was washed away by the flood. Nothing could be taken out. ‘
Bishnu Maya had a house plastered with mud inside and plastered with cement outside. Bishnu Maya, who has been living in this settlement for 30 years, had built the house with years of hard work. The elderly mother-in-law had been living in this house. The son and daughter-in-law have gone abroad for foreign employment. Since they had just gone abroad, the income sent by them was left to repair the house. But that possibility was also snatched away by the flood.
‘We had bought food grains, pigs, pigs for Dashain. The slow-moving flood with black mud made of gravel and sand in cement was wiped out,” says Bishnu Maya, “Seeing the flood, everyone ran to save their lives. I took out a bag from the drawer and ran upstairs. Clothes, food grains and cattle were all buried in the flood mud. ‘
Dashain had its own fervor before the floods in Syauli Bazaar of Tripurasundari Rural Municipality-2, Bishalnagar, Dhading. Almost everyone had bought rice, oil, spices and new clothes. During Dashain, pigs and pigs were tied up in the cage for meat. They are worried about how they will feed themselves and spend the night after the floods swept away the settlement.
Another victim of the same settlement is Lal Bahadur Ghale. When the flood engulfed the settlement, Lal Bahadur and his family could not think of anything other than saving their lives. Lal Bahadur says, “Not a single piece of belongings, food and clothes could be taken out of the house. All the belongings, including the children’s reading books, were swept away by the floods and mud. Now there is no food to eat, nor are there any notebooks left for the children.
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All the additions made by Lal Bahadur for the future of his children and Dashain have vanished in the mud of the flood. He had a dream of giving new clothes to the children during the festival and feeding them sweets. However, the disaster came in such a way that even the notebooks and pens in the hands of the children who were doing homework were left. They are now forced to live in the school building provided by the village to spend the night on the basis of a single cloth.
There is no target of houses in the settlement now. There is only mud and black mud in the slum where 32 families live. It is not possible to walk on the mud. Where till yesterday there were well-furnished houses, now there is an empire of mud and mud like Kalimati. The people of the settlement are compelled to look from a distance when the property and residence that they have been attached to for years have turned into mud in front of their eyes.
The place where Dashain was bustling till the morning of Ghatasthapana is deserted after the floods. Everyone is shocked when the house built by the wage laborers and the belongings used to run the house are washed away in front of their eyes. The 50 families of the settlement have become completely homeless.
After the floods, there is no decision about where to live, what to eat and how to spend the day. There is nothing left to wear and food to eat. The rural municipality and local representatives have come and compiled the names of the victims. But now it is not uncertain how the gas and shelter will be arranged. Locals are waiting for helping hands.
According to Raju Upreti, chairperson of Tripurasundari Rural Municipality, there were about 200 people from 58 families living in the squatter settlement of Syauli Bazaar. Now, the children, the elderly and the people of the community who work as daily wage laborers in the morning and evening are in distress. Chairman Upreti said that although they have been kept in the Chundevi Basic School in a safe place near the settlement for temporary accommodation, it is challenging to protect the children and the elderly.
The unimaginable calamity that came on the eve of the festival has snatched away all the happiness of the people of the slum dwellers. The structures that were erected for the sake of labor were destroyed in an instant, and not only the affected people but the onlookers have fallen from the cliffs. Krishna Bahadur Khatri, ward chairman of Tripurasundari Rural Municipality-2, said that there is only worry and despair in the houses of the settlement, which should have been celebrating Dashain.
Floods have also entered 10 other concrete houses adjacent to the squatter settlement. The doors and shutters of the concrete houses have been swept away by the floods and some belongings have not been able to be taken out of these houses as they are not able to walk on them.
Photo Caption:
Photo: Shankar Shrestha÷Dhading
1) A squatter settlement in Bishal Nagar of Tripurasundari Rural Municipality-2 in Dhading was swept away by the flooded Budhigandaki River on October 10.
2) Residents of Syauli Bazaar squatters in Tripurasundari Rural Municipality-2, Bishalnagar of Dhading who survived the flood in the Budhigandaki River on October 10.
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