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In the bright scorching sunlight, Lal Lama, 40, sits on a wooden bench outside his small tin house in Radhe Radhe in Thimi, Bhak­tapur. There, he runs a small tea shop. Lama said he had been feeling uneasy as incessant rainfall on July 11 and early July 12 hammered his tin roof. At around 5:15 am on July 12 he was in his shop with his two kids and attending to his customers when he noticed water from the road outside had started seeping in. In a matter of five minutes the water level in his shop rose to around five feet. “My kids started to float and I found myself drown­ing,” says Lama. “Fortunately, I was somehow able to save all my family.”

Lama is one of the many victims of the flood that hit Bhaktapur on the morning of July 12. Following the nearly non-stop rains on July 11 and 12, the Hanumante River—as well as some of its tributaries—had broken its banks and by the time water subsided, three people were dead and damages worth around Rs 120 million had been incurred, according to the Bhaktapur District Administration Office.

There was no time for Lama to take out any valuables from his shop or from his little adjacent room. He gets goosebumps think­ing of what would have happened had the flood hit his shop at night. Nonetheless Rs 60,000 worth of goods were damaged.

Government officials later visited his shop, like they did many others after the incident and asked about the losses. Lama said they made no promise of compensation. Nor does he hope for it.

His fridge that stored cold drinks has not worked since. When Lama was finally able to enter the shop after three days of the incident, there was mud everywhere and a pungent smell of decay.

Lama’s family has had a tough time of late. His family had also lost a lot in the 2015 earthquakes. At that time, he was in his home­town of Kavre. Though none of his close family members were killed, the earthquakes had completely razed his house and damaged all his valuables. He got Rs 300,000 in compensation from the government but was nearly not enough. It had only been a month since he, his wife and two children had shifted to Kathmandu valley, hoping for a better future. “Now, we are again in misery,” Lama rues.

Just beside his shop is a small wood factory that was also severely affected by recent floods. The work­ers said that five days after the floods most of the woodworks were now fine but four electrical appliances, costing Rs 50,000 each, were not working anymore.

Umer Thakur, 35, who is originally from Rautahat, told us that even though it had been raining heavily on July 12, it was otherwise a normal day. “But suddenly water burst in out of nowhere and brought down a wall of the factory and submerged everything,” he says. Some govern­ment officials came to talk to him about compensations but he does not expect anything.

After a five minute walk from Thakur’s factory, we reach a rice fac­tory where there is a very unpleas­ant smell of decaying rice. Heaps of wet dirty rice are lying inside.

Nearby, there is a small mattress factory where workers are sitting idle and talking to one another. None of their machines are working and they do not know when work will resume or if the machines can at all be repaired. Outside, water dripped from their wet mattresses.

We can see personnel of another big electronics company trying to salvage what remained of undam­aged goods. None of them wanted to talk about the incident or disclose the amount of loss incurred.

Then we meet Kamal Khadka, 50, who runs a small hardware store. He is now busy searching for his lost goods. He laments that he could not save anything when water sudden­ly entered his shop. He estimates around Rs 130,000 of losses.

Khadka, who has previously served in Nepal Army for 18 years, too said that though the mayor came to his shop to inquire, he does not expect any compensation. “I had not expected this. My wife and I ran to my relative’s place when water started coming into our shop. If it had been at night, I am sure many of us would have died.” He is glad that his family is now safe. But his wife, Sharmila Khadka, 40, has been suffering from severe headaches since the day.

A Bhaktapur municipality person­nel, who didn’t want to be identified as he was not authorized to speak on the matter, informed us that they are still calculating damages so that timely compensations can be provided. “Applications indicating the amount of losses are pouring in. Once all applications are in, every ward of Bhaktapur would hold a board meeting and the victims would then get their com­pensations,” the municipality per­sonnel informed.

Above all, this incident sheds light on Bhaktapur’s unpreparedness for any kind of emergency. It is horri­fying to think that the July 12 flood­ing, with water rising to five feet, was relatively small. Locals ruefully note that the rainy season is far from over.