Kathmandu, October 16

The Department of Soil Conservation and Watershed Management has been receiving at least 3 to 5 complaints of landslide victims daily.

Today alone, landslide victims from Doti, Kathmandu, Khotang, Ilam and Bajhang registered their complaints at the department.

According to Bijaya Raj Poudyal, newly-appointed director general of the department, most of the complaints were related to increased risk of landslide either due to construction of road or other development activities.

“Not a single day has passed without receiving complaints since I assumed office on September 28 last month,” Poudyal told The Himalayan Times, “People come from the rural areas spending up to Rs 10,000 with the request to save their homes, villages, settlements and cultivable lands from landslides.”

He said although there were at least 30 organisations working to prevent landslides in Nepal, not even one had actually resolved their problems.

Considering the number of complaints, the department is planning to prepare a landslide hazard map and deputise all sixty-one district soil conservation officers as environment inspectors.

DG Paudyal added the landslide hazard map would be prepared in a bid to make development projects environment-friendly and to save life and property by taking measures to possible prevent landslides.

Currently, there are 61 soil conservation and watershed management offices throughout the country. Besides, the department is preparing to launch local level programs to save life, land and settlements from the risk of landslides across the hilly region.

Though incidents of landslides and floods are reported across the country during monsoon every year, the government has yet to identify landslide and flood-prone areas.

According to Ranjan Kumar Dahal, a geologist and associate professor at Central Department of Geology in Tribhuwan University, 14 quake-hit districts are at high risk of landslide after last year’s earthquake.

A meeting held between geologists and officials of the Ministry of Forest and Wildlife Conservation a month after the quake last year had decided to jointly prepare a landslide hazard map.

According to geologist Dahal, upstream areas of Bhotekoshi, Melamchi of Sindhupalchowk, Rasuwa and northern Nuwakot, among 14 other quake-hit districts are at high-risk of landslide as their geological structure has become unstable due to the Gorkha earthquake.

Similarly, Tansen of Palpa, Tamghas of Gulmi, Mangalsen of Achham, Bhojpur, Sankhuwasabha and Phidim along with all major settlement areas of the mid-hills are at high risk of landslide.

The entire mid-hill region of the country had become vulnerable to landslides, especially after intense rainfall.

Paudyal added that the government had turned a deaf ear although he persistently reminded the latter of the vulnerable areas and the need to resettle people living in risky settlements.