The district of Bhaktapur in Kathmandu valley is one of the most concentrated human settlements in South Asia, packing in over 12,000 residents every square kilometer. And the population continues to swell, as the area absorbs more and more people lured by land prices that are comparably cheaper to what they would have to fork out inside the ring road. More people means more buildings and less open space. With the building codes lax, the human set­tlements in Bhaktapur had been getting progressively closer to the catchment areas of its three main rivers: Hanumante, Khasyangkhusung and Manohara. As a result, whenever there is a heavy rainfall, at least some areas in Bhaktapur are badly inundated by overflow­ing rivers. But the flooding on July 12 was the worst in years. Three members of the same family perished in Changu­narayan municipality when their tin hut was swept away in floods following 12 hours of non-stop rainfall. Temporary camps of earthquake victims at Jagati and Barahisthan were submerged; the landless squatters’ settlement at Jadibuti completely inundated. Similarly, settlements at Radhe Radhe and the Kamerotar land pooling project in Madhyapur Thimi were under water. Thousands of people were trapped inside their own watery homes.

 

This monsoon has already taken a heavy toll. Nearly 300 people have died in floods and landslides in the past three months, according to Home Ministry. “We have been unable to reduce damages despite our many programs to reduce the risk of natural disasters,” says Kedar Neupane, the chief of the ministry’s disaster management unit.

 

It is not clear better forecasting could have prevented the latest Bhaktapur inundation either. There was no cloudburst, nor was one predicted. Nor were there any blockades in the three main rivers, which are otherwise fast turning into dumping grounds. The culprit rather was the sheer volume of water that fell.

 

The only way to mitigate future damages will be to keep the settlements at a safe distance from the main water arteries. But any such effort will be met with tough resistance, espe­cially by the squatters and those displaced by recent earth­quakes. There are in fact no easy fixes. More effective would be progressive tightening of the building codes, building resettlement homes for the landless—the Dhurmus-Suntali foundation has already shown the way on cheap mass-scale housing—and greater awareness on the ever-present dangers of living so close to the unruly rivers.