11 killed as late monsoon wreaks havoc in Nepal

KATHMANDU - At least 11 people were killed as a late monsoon brought misery in Nepal, triggering landslides and fears about a possible breach in the Kosi barrage that two years ago wreaked havoc in Nepal and India.

Police said 10 people, mostly women and children, died in western Nepal after landslides swept villages, reducing shacks to debris and burying inhabitants while they were sleeping early Sunday.

Five members of the same family died in Kaski district, including three daughters of Purna Bahadur Sarki, police said.

In another village in the same district, a man lost his three children, aged 12, seven and four.

In Syangja district, the swirling mass of mud and rocks killed a woman and her son, police said.

In Mahottari district in southern Nepal, flooded river waters brought the corpse of an unidentified man, police said Monday.

In controversial Susta village in western Nawalparasi district, a bone of contention between India and Nepal with allegations of encroachment, the flooded Narayani river had begun to gobble up land.

In Rautahat, the Lal Bakaiya river was in spate, destroying rice and sugarcane to farmers’ woe after a drought last month induced by a late monsoon.

The Kosi river in southern Nepal, called “Bihar’s sorrow” due to the severe floods it causes in the eastern Indian state regularly during monsoon, was rising, officials said.

Some erosion was reported in one of the spurs bolstering the barrage of the mighty river though there was no immediate danger of breaching.

As per an agreement between Nepal and India, India built the Kosi barrage and the Bihar government is entrusted with its maintenance.

However, Nepal alleges poor maintenance and failure to prevent erosion of the spurs led to the breaching of the Kosi embankments in the past and devastating floods.

Bihar, on the other hand, says Nepal’s government could not provide adequate security to its inspecting teams who were threatened by armed groups and political parties.

(Sudeshna Sarkar can be contacted at sudeshna.s@ians.in)