RAUTAHAT/RAJBIRAJ, JULY 20

In the wake of incessant rainfall since Sunday, Rautahat DAO has issued a directive to people living in and around river banks to stay on high alert.

Locals living in and around the banks of the Bagmati and Lalbakaiya rivers are apprehensive about the incessant rainfall causing flood and damage.

The rainfall, which has continued for the past few days in the hilly, Chure and Tarai regions has posed threat of flood in the northern, southern and central parts of the district.

“We have kept the technical teams of the Nepal Army, Nepal Police and APF on standby to control and reduce the damage to be caused by the flood and erosion,” said a source at Rautahat DAO.

Rautahat CDO Basudev Ghimire said locals living in the highly flood sensitive zone would be evacuated to safer places and highlands.

CDO Ghimire urged the locals not to venture out to small streams and rivulets such as Lamaha, Jhajh, Hardiya, Bhakuwa and Kamdehi as well as the Bagmati and Lalbakaiya rivers.

“The DAO has deployed security forces to Bagmati and Lalbakaiya rivers and Chandi and Jhajh streams,” said CDO Ghimire.

A team led by Province 2 Minister of Internal Affair and Law Gyanendra Yadav had inspected areas in Rautahat that get submerged and pledged to provide support for the flood and inundation control, earlier.

Similarly following incessant rainfalls, almost all houses have been inundated in Rajbiraj Municipality, Saptari.

As many as 150 houses were inundated at wards 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 and 15 after Bhaluwahi Khola of Rajbiraj Municipality was flooded.

The human settlement has been at high risk after the water level increased rapidly in Khando, Triyuga, Saptakoshi, Jita, Balan, Khadakand Mahuli, among other rivers. As many as 50 houses in Tilathi Koiladi Rural Municipality, 30 at Belhi and 75 in Hanumannagar Kankalini Municipality were inundated after the water level increased in Khandokhola.

The chiefs at the respective local levels said that displaced people were shifted to a safer place.

Rural Municipality Disaster Management Committee Officer Rajesh Jha of Tilathi Koiladi Rural Municipality said the water level in the settlements Behi and Sakarpur of the rural municipality had reached two feet. Local farmers at Sakarpur said that the paddy farms were also destroyed.

Harinarayan Mandal, a local, said 25 houses at Manshapur were inundated after Jita River entered the human settlement.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on July 21, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.