CHATMANDU: Survivors of the monsoon floods that ravaged Nepal over the weekend criticized the government on Tuesday for its lack of relief efforts during the disaster that killed at least 218 people. Deadly floods and landslides are common in South Asia during the monsoon season from June to September, but experts say climate change is making them worse. Entire neighborhoods in the capital Kathmandu were flooded over the weekend, along with villages in remote pockets of the Himalayan country still waiting for help. “There is no road, so no one has come,” Mira KC, who lives in a village in Kavre district east of Kathmandu, told AFP. All they’re going to do is express their condolences, what are they going to do?” The floods have disproportionately affected Kathmandu’s poorest residents living in makeshift slums along the banks of the Bagmati River and its tributaries that flow through the city. Slum resident Man Kumar Rana Magar, 49, told AFP that authorities sheltered him and his neighbors in a school after their homes were flooded. However, he said they were forced to leave before they were ready to return to their homes when the school reopened for classes. “We are so close to the seat of government. If they cannot take care of the poor so carefully, what will they do with the others?” he said. At least 218 people have been killed in the floods and another 27 are still missing, according to Nepal’s interior ministry. More than 4,000 others were rescued. Nepal’s meteorological office said preliminary data showed 240 millimeters (9.4 in) of rain had fallen in the 24 hours to Saturday morning, the heaviest one-day downpour in more than two decades. Experts said authorities were ill-prepared for the disaster despite predictions of intense storms. “Preventive measures that should have been taken have been ignored,” climate expert Arun Bhakta Shrestha of the Kathmandu-based think tank International Center for Integrated Mountain Development told AFP. Nepalese disaster management expert Man Bahadur Thapa said gaps in coordination and resources also hampered the rescue process. “We could have saved many more lives if we had prepared and built the capacity of our adversaries,” he told AFP. Home Ministry spokesman Rishi Ram Tiwari said authorities “have been working tirelessly since the disaster began and all our resources are operational”. Every year, monsoon rains in South Asia bring widespread death and destruction in the form of floods and landslides. Experts say climate change has worsened their frequency and intensity. More than 300 people have died in rain-related disasters in Nepal this year.
