Landslide damage in a seemingly safe place

Overnight rains washed away sticky soil around 1 am. A landslide fell from the place where the wall was destroyed behind the house and reached the house made of blocks and tin.

40-year-old Aarti, her two daughters 18-year-old Anita, 11-year-old Anushka and 9-year-old brother's son Prateek Ojha were sleeping. The landslide took Jammai . Aarti lives as much. The remaining three died on the spot. Aarti was rescued in a serious condition and kept at Pokhara Health Science Institute for treatment. Currently, his condition is moderate. Her husband who is in India for employment has returned. When he returns, there is no home, nor two daughters .

Akkal Bahadur Karki, the ward president of Pokhara-32, recalled that he suggested not to build the house on the site where the steep land was built. "I said that there is sticky soil in that place, if it rains, it will bend and fall," he said. This time Kalila children had to be lost.'

That same night, a landslide occurred in another ward of Pokhara causing even greater human losses. At 10:15 pm on June 27, 6 people were buried in one house when a landslide fell from behind the house in Tallakot Thanti, Pokhara-19 Purunchaur. Due to the impact of the landslide, the woman who lived in the lower house also died. 46-year-old Kul Bahadur Pariyar had a two-room mud house with stone and mud mud and a tin roof above the motorway in Tallakot. Behind the house, corn was planted in fifteen fields. After two-three days of continuous rain, the previous day, a small landslide had piled up to the garden above the house . The water was bursting and flowing through the house. Miley's daughter Prabha and son-in-law Asmit came on June 27 to clear the landslide.

The neighbor suggested Kul Bahadur to stay that night. But the debris that fell from the house almost 50 meters away reached the crude house . Along with Kul Bahadur, his 43-year-old wife Mankumari, 85-year-old mother Laxim, 15-year-old daughter Prashana, 20-year-old Prabha and 25-year-old son-in-law Asmit were buried inside the house. 56-year-old sister-in-law Radhika Pariyar, who lived in a lower house than her, who came out after hearing the sound of the landslide, fell and died. 17-year-old Pawan Periyar, son of Kul Bahadur, was rescued by locals in a half-buried state.

Dai Suvarna Pariyar's block and a two-storey tin house adjacent to his house had a landslide. On the other side, the landslide reached the two-storey concrete slope house of Man Bahadur Lamichhane Chhetri . But the landslide did not damage the house itself. A landslide fell on the floor after breaking the door. There was no other human and physical damage.

Vikas Acharya, ward member of Pokhara-19, said that a small landslide caused a huge human loss. According to him, there is more possibility of landslides in red fusro soil (jogi soil in local language). However, even though there was no big landslide at that place before, he said that the damage was caused when Kul Bahadur's family was alerted. "I thought that even if there was a landslide, the house would not be damaged," he said. The goldsmith's crude house was completed. This house was also built in the place of Pakho Khare . His 27-year-old wife Ritu Sunar and 3-year-old son Anmol Sunar, who were sleeping in the walled room, were swept away by the landslide. The landslide broke the mud of the block and entered the house. When he gave up around 3 am, he was able to rescue his wife from the landslide. Anmol lost his life. Hari and his 9-year-old daughter Anjali are healthy. On June 25, 22-year-old Bhim Bahadur Thapa lost his life when a small mound fell in Pokhara-27 Sahelapata and destroyed a house made of blocks and tin.

Pokhara-27 Ward President Purnakumar Gurung said that looking at the location of both these landslides, it is beyond imagination. "There is no such place as a landslide," he said, "The landslide is not that big, a small mound fell and killed them." Similarly, a girl lost her life in Madi rural municipality-5 Chitepani on the night of June 12 due to natural landslides. A mound of mud fell and reached the house of Prakash Ranabhat . His mother Lalmaya and her 13-year-old daughter Ayushma were sleeping in one room of the stone-mud three-storey house. The landslide reached the room where Ayushma was sleeping. He died on the spot. Lalmaya's condition is normal.

On June 28, 80-year-old Maitikumari Gurung was killed by a landslide that came from the top of her house in Madi Rural Municipality-11 Lower Saple of Kaski. When he went out for the toilet while it was raining, the landslide killed him .

Since the onset of monsoon, 13 people have lost their lives in Kaski due to landslides. 11 people lost their lives in Pokhara Metropolitan Municipality and 2 people died in Madi Rural Municipality, which is said to be easy. The nature of all these landslide events is similar. All landslides occurred during the night . A person was buried by a landslide while he was sleeping inside the house. Landslides have come from large and from far above the settlement, causing small mounds to fall and reaching a house. All the houses that have been damaged by the landslides are kachi . Landslides have caused human and physical damage to houses covered with stone, mud or block mud and tin.

According to Ram Prasad Sharma, associate professor and geologist of Institute of Forestry Studies, Pokhara Campus, mainly phyllite and quartzite rocks are found in Pokhara, which is located in the Mahabharata mountain range. The phyllite rock, which is relatively weak, breaks down and forms clayey clay. When there is heavy rain in a place with sticky soil, the water dissolves the soil. "After the water penetrates the soil, pressure is applied to the fine holes in the middle of the soil, which causes landslides," he said. "If there is a place where the river flows above the house, the settlement, if the water from the river can be cut off by making a channel to divert it, then landslides can be avoided," he said, "If there is a place where roots grow and there is clayey soil, then the settlement should not be built in such a place."