POKHARA: As many as 5,000 buildings in 18 wards of the Pokhara Sub-Metropolitan City have been found constructed against building code.

The Pokhara Sub-Metropolitan City had started to collect data of the building constructed against the building code two weeks ago after an earthquake of local magnitude 7.6 struck the country on April 25, destroying hundreds of thousands of houses across the nation.

The Sub-Metropolitan City Office does not allow anyone to construct houses more than 35 feet tall in Pokhara but the people have not stopped constructing buildings adopting the set criteria.

According to statistics, Ward No.17 has the highest 1,650 houses constructed against the building code.

Purna Gurung, engineer at the Sub-Metropolitan City Office and coordinator of a committee formed by the Sub-Metropolitan City Office to take stock of the buildings constructed against the code, informed that they have collected the data by reaching each house in the city.

According to Surendra Paudel, engineer at the Sub-Metropolitan City Office, as many as 250 houses were constructed against the stated standard in Ward No.1, 156 each in  Ward No. 2 and 3, and 287, 133, 892, 123, 501, and 410 in Ward no. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 respectively.

Similarly, 174, 92, 30, 22, 53, 95, 40, 1,650 and 23 houses in ward no. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18 respectively flout the building code.

Paudel further informed that the all-party meeting would decide whether to pull down or leave the houses as it is.

Pokhara Sub-Metropolitan City informed that there are altogether 100,000 houses in city area of Pokhara.

It has been revealed that most of the houses in New Road, Prithvi Chowk, Palikhe Chowk, Siddhartha Chowk, Lakeside, Srijan Chowk and Naya Bazaar among others ares of the tourist city are not on a par with the existing building code.