GALESHWOR, April 14: Around 150 people of 32 households live in Torakhet village, which is highly vulnerable to landslides. It has been 20 years since the village in Beni municipality-3 of Myagdi was hit by a landslide. Even though more than 60 people migrated from the village during this period, 73-year-old Bhakta Bahadur Sapkota refused to leave the village and migrate to another place. He and 32 other families in the village are worried about landslides even before the monsoon season.
Concerned authorities said that this landslide, which started falling since 2058, is getting worse every year, and the budget of the local government is not enough to control the landslide. As more than 60 houses in Beni Municipality-3 Torakhet and Beni Municipality-2 Bagarphant were identified as under high risk during an initiative to control landslides, 17 families in Torakhet and four families in Bagarphant were relocated in the last two years.
Dil Bahadur Sapkota, a local leader, said that the landslide became more dangerous because the earthquake of 2072 weakened the surface. Over a dozen places of rocky land covering an area of about one kilometer in Torakhet have vertical cracks.
Fear of landslide keeps locals awake
Yam Bahadur Karki, Ward President of Jamrookkot, Beni Municipality-2, said that 17 families living in the area surrounding the landslide in Torakhet were relocated and placed in Bhakunde, Faparkhet and Bagarphant of Jamrookkot.
Below is the steep ground between the huge rock falls. There is a dirt road connecting Bhakunde-Bhakimli about 300 meters above Torakhet village in the same place. Local residents complained that the danger of landslides increased during the rainy season due to the presence of water sources around the same area.
The local people's representative said that the landslide is dangerous for the people of Torakhet and Bagarphant due to the weak terrain of the village, the motor road at the top of the village, the rocks and the forest and the source of the water in that area.
There is a big threat of landslides in Beni municipality-2 due to the rock slide above Torakhet village. Landslide towards Dhupirukh at the bottom of Torakhet has put Bagarphat at high risk. Bhakta Sapkota, a resident of the same place, said that Torakhet village has become more dangerous during the rainy season this year than in previous years because the steep land is sliding from above.
"Prior to monsoon, I am unable to sleep all night due to the fear of landslides. Because of the landslide, all the village folks left the village and we are in fear of when the land will become desolate and destroyed," he said.
