Rautahat, July 28 As the monsoon-fuelled Bagmati River threatens to breach its embankment in Durga Bhagawati Rural Municipality, Rautahat, hundreds of houses in the local level are at high risk. The river has already damaged about 2 metres of the embankment constructed to save human settlements on the river front in wards 1 and 3 of Durga Bhagawati Rural Municipality. With the erosion continuing unabated, the threat has increased. Locals have attributed the increased erosion to lack of timely repairs of the embankment built 26 years ago. They have also accused the administration of neglecting the imminent threat. “As the office that oversees work to control the river is in Bara, it has compounded the problem,” said Nepali Congress Mahasamiti member Shamchandra Jha, a resident of Ward 3, Matsari, adding that besides Gangapipara and Matsari, settlements in Pacharukhi of ward 4 were also under threat. Further, citing the risk of huge damage to life and property, Jha called on the local level concerned and the local administration to take immediate steps to save human settlements from possible disaster. Earlier, after the flooded Lal Bakaiya and Bagmati rivers eroded embankments at over a dozen places nearing danger level, security personnel of all three security agencies and locals were deployed to contain the river and stop the erosion. “Just like elsewhere, security personnel and locals have to work on a war footing if we are to stop any disaster here,” said local social activist Ram Narayan Jha. A version of this article appears in e-paper on July 29, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.