Darchula flood - worst in 100 years

"Never had I witnessed a disaster situation and I was there in the midst of the floods where I saw houses being swept away by the fury of the Mahakali River. With no signs of the rain stopping, I was disoriented and confused before a sense of panic set in."

Darchula District was hit hard by four days of incessant rain starting from 15 to 18 June, 2013. The details in this blog are based on the accounts from Gagan Singh Thagunna, Save the Children's Social Mobilization & Communication Officer based in Dhangadi.

An eight member team had travelled to Darchula District in far west Nepal by road on 14^th of June to conduct a media advocacy training workshop for the Suhaara project staff. The rain started to pour the next day and it rained all day and into the night. When Gagan woke up at 5:30 in the morning of 16^th June he saw a list of missed calls in his cell phone. He immediately called his supervisor Laxmi Raj Joshi and soon learned about the mess the pouring rain had started to cause.

Gagan was staying in a hotel with 22 other NGO staffs and media persons. The police and army were all over their hotel asking guests to urgently evacuate to higher grounds as the Mahakali River was rising. To Gagan's shock and dismay all houses above the river banks had disappeared and all he could see was the gushing force of the water slamming hard on the banks. They packed in a hurry and started moving to the higher grounds.

“Patients in the health post were being moved to higher grounds. Medical staff was busy moving life saving equipment and patients. Homes, grocery stores and hotels were being swept away, it was a scene I had never seen before and we panicked – all of us were confused. It was so sudden,” said Gagan over the phone.

Although the land telecommunication networks were disrupted their mobile phones did not lose its network - the only solace he and his team had in the midst of the fear, confusion and panic. Constant communication from the central team in Kathmandu and the region office kept him and his colleagues calm but a sense of danger was looming. With the rain pouring continuously, every minute was different; people were moving constantly to higher grounds, correlating with the rise of the flood waters and their fear. The river kept swelling and the ferocity of the river was there for people to see and fear, engulfing everything on its path. It was too dangerous to not react.

While the regional office in Dhangadi in the southern plains in western Nepal continuously communicated with Gagan and his colleagues, it was only a matter of time before a decision was made to evacuate them from Darchula. The challenge - all roads out of the district including the road access through India were blocked by landslides.

The police and army were the first to reach out to the people. They were deployed immediately to rescue people from being trapped and swept away and that's the reason the loss of life was limited to just one person. However, the people are angry and cold towards the government and the local authorities saying relief has been too little and too slow. The loss and damage to property is massive and people who have lost everything want the government to act quickly. More than 350 families have been affected with more than 100 houses completely destroyed.

Gagan and seven other staff were air lifted form Darchula on 19^th of June and are now safe in Dhangadi. Save the Children's Suhaara project managed to send 300 kg of rice and 50 kg of lentils (Wednesday) on the helicopter that was sent to rescue eight of the nine staff who was in Darchula.

The District Coordinator of the Suhaara project Laxmi Raj Joshi chose to stay back and is safe. The rain finally decided to show some mercy and stopped pouring from the evening of 18^th June. With road blockages and almost all government offices engulfed by the rain and flood it will take some time for things to return to normal.

Although the rain has stopped for now, the damage is irreparable and there is a sense of shock and disbelief amongst the people, which will stay with them for years to come. They are already standing up to help each other to bring normalcy to their lives. The people in Darchula have never witnessed such an overwhelming scale of destruction. It could take anywhere from 4-6 months to clear the road blockage which means the supply of basic necessities could be a daunting task for the responding agencies. This also means the festivities of the Dasain festival in October could be low key for the local residents.