Central and eastern parts of Nepal witnessed devastating incidents of landslides and floods last week. At least 244 people were killed, while 19 are still missing. The Post’s Thira Lal Bhusal sat down with Basanta Raj Adhikari, director at the Centre for Disaster Studies, Institute of Engineering at Tribhuvan University, to discuss how the country can be better prepared to manage the disasters and minimise damages.
Recently we faced disastrous floods and landslides. How do you analyse the losses? Could the damages have been reduced with better preparation and timely response?
To begin with, I want to make one thing clear. There is a fundamental difference between a disaster and hazard. Hazard is always natural but it becomes a disaster if there is human involvement. If there is a landslide in a jungle with no human activity, it is a hazard. If a landslide hit a human settlement and it required external involvement to restore the place, then it becomes a disaster. An earthquake is a hazard but it becomes a disaster when man-made structures kill people.
As far as the losses from the recent floods are concerned, we could have minimised them with better preparation. For instance, Nakkhu was one of the worst hit areas in the Kathmandu Valley. The river there has drastically narrowed and a human settlement has been developed on the riverbanks in recent years. Human activities in rivers are natural as human civilisations took place on the banks of rivers. But it should be done without disrupting the natural flow of the water. We developed huge settlements encroaching the riverbanks. This invited huge losses. Such activities could have been avoided.
As Nepal witnessed record-high rainfalls, were not these losses to be expected?
It is true that the country witnessed record rainfalls this season, the highest in the past over five decades. Climate change has caused extreme weather events in recent years. But we can’t blame only natural factors. If you see the images of 2003, it clearly shows that the place where the MediCity Hospital now stands is clearly the floodplain of the Nakkhu river. If you go further downstream, you see a colony. This is how we have encroached riverbanks. We can encroach rivers but it should be done in a scientific way.