Ravaged Melamchi Bazaar wants to revive

  MELAMCHI, July 11: Chairperson of ward no 11 in Melamchi Municipality, Rudra Dulal, is now busy collecting the details on loss of physical properties at Melamchi bazaar. He is worried how the people in Melamchi bazaar can be provided rehabilitation. Melamchi bazaar was ravaged by the flood three weeks back. The bazaar area is now changed into pile of sand. All physical structures are damaged.  The massive floods trigged with rainfall and landslide also damaged a historic bridge, constructed by Chandra Shumsher.  “Due to information shared early on the floods in Indrawati area above Melamchi bazaar on time, the human loss was however averted luckily,” Dulal remembered, adding that the people’s houses, hotels and restaurants and municipality offices and structures perished in the massive flood.  The police made aware the people in the market area via miking in the evening after the information was relayed about the floods in the Indrawati River. June 15 is inerasable in his mind. After the police miking, people left their houses even without taking the evening meal they had made ready. They left the bazaar for safe places. Throughout the night, they stayed in a local school. They were provided meals by the Nepal Army that night. “When it was next morning, entire bazaar area was covered with flood sludge. The river had entered the bazaar. We could not image it,” he explained the disaster. In his ward, as many as 140 houses are damaged fully and 42 at high risk. Those who left houses on the eve of disaster are now searching rooms in rent.  The Municipality has decided to provide room fare to 200 households for two months. He further said the people want concrete houses rather than temporary settlement. Similarly, Mayor at Melamchi Municipality, Dambar Bahadur Aryal, said although the municipality could provide some relief to the disaster survivors, both the province and federal governments should provide assistance for sustainable solution.  The municipality has filled the forms to send these to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority to ascertain the beneficiaries, he added. Ten excavators are used by the municipality to return the Melamchi and Indrawati Rivers to their original course and remove the debris.  The ravaged Melamchi wants its revival with assistance from all sides, he added.