Kathmandu, June 23, 2013: Five hundred survivors of the Uttarkhand floods rescued by the Indian government returned to Nepal on Saturday, bringing in tales of havoc and a quest for survival in the aftermath. But the numbers of missing is on the rise. On Saturday alone, the Nepalese Embassy in Delhi took down names of hundreds of new individuals reported as missing by their families, according to the local daily Kantipur.

“Some were swept away, others died of altitude sickness and cold. We walked through the jungle, with nothing to eat for days, surviving on the biscuits dropped from the helicopters,” said Bhagiram Budhathoki of Salyan district, speaking to the BBC. “Whatever we were left with, the locals then robbed us.” The BBC also reported that there were up to 20,000 Nepalis, both pilgrims and workers, in the areas before the floods struck.

The Mahakali divide

Within Nepal, on the other side of the Uttarakhand, the reverberations of last week’s flood are still being felt. Districts along the Nepali side of the Mahakali river, particularly Darchula, suffered the full fury of the river as it tore through the district headquarter Khalanga last Monday, tearing it apart into three pieces. Floods and landslides destroyed hundreds of houses, and displace more than two thousand, according to the local media.

Another major river, Karnali, inundated the flatlands of Bardiya and Kailali. The two rivers, together, have claimed at least thirty human lives.

Many survivors have not been happy with the government’s response, accusing it of “insulting” them with a few sacks of rice when they’ve lost property worth millions. The Nepal government has increased the assistance package to include Rs 35,000 per family and pledged Rs 50 crore for the reconstruction of Darchula.

The locals, including the district administrator and Nepali Congress politicians from the district have accused the Indian side of opening the floodgates of the Dhauliganga hydro project in Uttarakhand without alerting the Nepali side. Dhauliganga river meets Mahakali before it reaches Darchula and has a 70-meter-high dam with a full electricity generation capacity of 280 MW.

Nepal’s Foreign Secretary said on Friday that “the sensitive issue was duly conveyed to the Indian side. The matter was also immediately pursued at the diplomatic level.” A press statement from the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu also issued a press release on Friday, clarified that “the question of India releasing the dam water simply does not arise” because Dhauliganga is a “small run-of-the-river project based on a small reservoir” which was completely submerged ceased operation on June 16.

Local and government officials who inspected the district say that the flood was one of the biggest in decades that has altered Darchula physically and psychologically.

“Every time it rains, we come out of the house,” a local resident said to the Republica daily, “we live in a constant fear of floods.”

Source: The Hindu, DT. June 23, 2013.