Khotang. Landslides in Jantedhunga Rural Municipality-2 Bopung have been making the local residents homeless every year. The landslide of Bopung which started more than a century ago has not stopped even now.
A local elder, Dilgman Rai informed that the ancestors have been telling that the landslide that started from Buwakhola started before the great earthquake of 1990. “The Wasing landslide, which started more than a century ago, has washed away dozens of houses and hundreds of plantations. No one has the exact damage information of this landslide. However, it has lifted people’s homes”, he said.
Although no human casualties have been caused by the landslide in Buwakhola, which flows through the border of Jantedhunga rural municipality-1 Devisthan and Ward No. 2 Bopung in the southern region of the district, it has been found that the farmlands on the banks of the river have been turned into bogs. After the rice fields they were cultivating were destroyed by landslides, they migrated to other places.
An elderly resident of Yurang informed that the Goreto road, which the local residents of Huwala and Yurang have been using for years, has also washed away due to the Wasing landslide. “There is a source of water at the place where the landslide occurred. Since the water is flowing during the rainy season, landslides are still occurring”, he said, “When there is a lot of rain, the landslides that fall from above even block the Buwakhola. When the river overflows, it also endangers the local residents of the lower areas.”
Due to the Wasing landslide, the local residents are forced to spend days and nights worried as soon as the rains begin. Due to the landslide that spread over an area of about one kilometer, many people left their ancestral home and migrated and built houses in different districts of Eastern Terai.
The principal of the school, Birendra Rai, informed that the Vijay Basic School, which is running about 200 meters above the Wasing landslide, is also at risk. “There are Dumribote and Yurang villages a little below the school. Landslides have already occurred near that village”, he said, “We don’t know when what will happen. Since the landslides are not stopped, anything can happen at any time. It is important for everyone to be alert.”
It is said that the Vasing landslide, visible from a distance, has caused the most damage in Ward No. 8 Wasing and Ward No. 9 Yurang of the former Bopung Village Development Committee (Village). Locals have said that 15 houses of the locals who were living in the middle of the Wasing landslide moved to other places as soon as the landslide started in the lower area.
Masta Bahadur Rai, Ward President of Bopung, informed that the risk has increased in many villages as the continuous landslide has moved up to about one and a half kilometers from Buwakhola. “Wasing landslides have put the residents of Waling, Huwala, Dumrebote, Ahale, Batula and Kharbani at risk. The budget of the ward and rural municipality cannot prevent this landslide”, he said.
Ward president Kedarman Rai informed that the landslides in Bopung are causing great damage to the paddy crops grown by the local farmers living in the lower areas of Devisthan every year. The rural municipality said that Bopung and other wards of this rural municipality, which has six wards, are also at high risk of landslides.