Nepal has closed schools for three days after landslides and floods triggered by two days of heavy rain across the Himalayan country left 151 people dead and 56 missing, officials said on Sunday.
The floods brought traffic and normal activity to a standstill in the Kathmandu Valley, where 37 people were killed in the capital and home to four million people.
Authorities said students and parents faced difficulties as university and school buildings damaged by the rain needed to be repaired.
“We have appealed to the relevant authorities to close schools in the affected areas for three days,” Lakshmi Bhattarai, spokeswoman for the Ministry of Education, told Reuters.
Some parts of the capital have reported as much as 322.2 millimeters of rain, causing the Bagmati river to rise 2.2 meters past the danger zone, experts said.
But there were signs of respite on Sunday morning, as the rains eased in many places, said Govinda Jha, a meteorologist in the capital.
“It is possible that there will be isolated showers, but there is little chance of heavy rains,” he said.
Television footage showed police rescuers wearing knee-high rubber boots using picks and shovels to clear the mud and remove 16 bodies of passengers from two buses that were swept away by landslides on the main road to Kathmandu.
Weather officials in the capital blamed the storms on a low-pressure system in the Bay of Bengal that extended into parts of neighboring India near Nepal.
Haphazard development increases the risk of climate change in Nepal, say climate scientists at the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).
“I have never seen floods like this in Kathmandu,” said Arun Bhakta Shrestha, the center’s environmental risk officer.
In a statement, it urged the government and city planners to “urgently” strengthen investment, and infrastructure systems, such as underground rainwater and sewage systems – both “gray,” or the engineered type, and “green,” or the nature-based type.
The impact of the rains has been exacerbated by water scarcity due to unplanned settlement and urbanization efforts, construction in flood-prone areas, lack of water storage facilities and encroachment of the Bagmati river, it added.
The level of the Koshi River in south-eastern Nepal has started to drop, however, said Ram Chandra Tiwari, the district’s chief executive.
The river, which brings deadly floods to India’s eastern state of Bihar almost every year, has been out of danger.
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