Katmandu: At least 111 people have been killed and 35 other went missing in the floods and landslides triggered by incessant rainfall across the country.
Thirty-eight people were reported missing, 25 were injured and more than 3,000 pieces of infrastructure, including bridges and telephone towers, were damaged, the Home Ministry said on Tuesday. Torrential rains battered the low-lying region bordering India for three days last week.
“Rescuing people trapped by floods is the government’s first priority. We have also distributed relief materials to them,” a ministry statement said.
Pushkar Karki, a spokesman for Nepal Police, said his forces had coordinated with government agencies to provide relief.
In Jogbani, an Indian border town near the worst-hit city of Biratnagar, seven bodies were pulled from a flooded area on Tuesday, the Kathmandu Post reported
In Chitwan, home to the country’s largest national park, an endangered rhino and six deer were found dead after the Narayani river inundated the area, the newspaper reported.
Home Minister Sharma said that 80 per cent territory of these districts and thousands of houses has been inundated, 35 have gone missing and thousands of people have been displaced from the flood.
He said that relief materials are being distributed at inundated areas from a helicopter.
Saying the government has also started distributing Rs 200,000 to each family of those killed in a landslide and Rs 10,000 for maintenance of the damaged house, the Home Minister clarified that flood and landslide victims would be rehabilitated by Wednesday.
Minister Sharma said that the government has mobilized doctors on the basis of the population of the areas not to let spread the infection of the disease and started to collect details of damaged physical infrastructures.