Nepalese residents stand near broken tents during heavy wind at a relief camp for earthquake survivors in Kathmandu yesterday.
IANS/DPA/Kathmandu
At least one person was killed and several injured in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu yesterday after strong winds along with a brief spell of rain rattled the city, including the people living in open spaces due to fear of earthquake aftershocks.
Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport was shut down for one hour due to strong winds and storm. Several international flights were put on hold for a while, said airport authorities.
“We were forced to close down the airport after zinc sheets around the airport area started flying on to the runway due to strong winds and storm,” Birendra Shrestha, general manager of the airport, told the media.
Narayan Khadka, a Nepal police spokesman, said a woman pillion rider was killed in Kathmandu when a tree fell on her in Soyambhu area yesterday evening.
A taxi driver and some pedestrians were injured in the city after trees were uprooted in the storm.
People living in open spaces in several parts of the city ran to safe areas to take shelter after the storm destroyed their tents and tarpaulins.
“We were a town of 283 households. Now half of us have already left for other parts of the country,” said Ishwor Shrestha, a resident of Bahrabise town in Sindhupalchowk district, which suffered the worst casualties in the earthquake.
“People in the nearby villages have also started leaving so more than half the people here have gone.”
Shrestha said his family had rented a room on the outskirts of Kathmandu, while part of his family had been sent away to relatives in eastern Nepal.
“Everyone’s looking for an alternative as the rains will begin in a few weeks and it won’t be possible to live in tents then.”
The Sunkoshi basin, where Sindhupalchowk lies, is affected by the monsoon every year, when flooding kills people and sweeps away property.
On Friday, the government said it was sending assessment teams to study the possibility of relocation of villages in the affected districts.
But the assessment would take a week and people fear they might not be able to wait.
“They say it is dangerous for us to live here because the earthquakes have caused a higher possibility of landslides, but where is the provision for us to move elsewhere? We can’t just go and take other people’s space up,” Shrestha said.
Yesterday, police said that rescue workers pulled out 29 bodies from a landslide in Dolakha district’s Singati that was triggered by the earthquake on May 12.
Fifteen people were still missing according to Dolakha district police officer, Ajay KC. But locals feared more people might be trapped.
According to police, at least 8,629 have already died in Nepal in two major quakes that hit on April 25 and May 12. Media reports Friday put the death toll at more than 9,000. Hundreds are missing and thousands have been displaced.
