7.3 aftershock: Buildings may have fallen in Charikot, but hope still stands

A man stands outside what remains of his home in Charikot. (Source: Express Photo by Tashi Tobgyal)

Charikot’s Buildings tell a story. The rubble that once held the Sooriya Development Bank was once three floors; but now there are none. Outside lie papers from the banks’ administrative section. The cover of a register lies torn off. “Sooriya Bank Leave Register” it says. The bank was next to a barber shop, but the wall between the two has come down.

Three people died when this building shook for the second time in the last two months, with officials putting the overall number in and around the area at around 40 lives lost. Many may still be buried.

Charikot’s buildings are now destroyed, with faultlines on the inside, most declared unsafe. But the people of this hill town, less than 20 km from the epicentre, and 140 km from Kathmandu, are refusing to listen to the narrative around them, but are building one of their own. Of courage and reconstruction.

Hem Kunt Bhatt sits outside his general store at 3.30 pm on Thursday with his infant daughter, when an aftershock rumbles. “These aftershocks happen all the time. Very few people stop any more. There’s work to be done,” he says.

On that street, only his building still stands. But other shopkeepers like him have spent the last two days foraging for items to salvage. They sleep in tents at night; they sell goods in the day. “If we don’t earn, we can’t rebuild our homes… Do you want to buy something?” one lady shopkeeper asks, a sense of urgency in her voice. There is no electricity, so there is no refrigerator, but crates of beer are up for sale. Any money is welcome.

Just outside Charikot, on the road leading to the town, brothers Jit Bahadur and Nar Bahadur have piles of wood under their feet. Four poles have been erected in an effort to build their family a home. “We are using all the wood that was in our original house that collapsed. We looked for anything that could be used till this morning, and then began with the logs, three hammers and some nails,” he says. Two hundred metres away, another family is doing the same.

In the centre of town, however, the problem is that the homes are largely of brick, cement and mortar.

“Normally, it means that I am better off than those in wood homes. But you can’t rebuild the house without a lot of money these days,” said 83-year-old Hari Kumar Shreshtha, standing in front of a two-floor house, cracked from top to bottom.

There is good reason for the urgency. Rains are coming, and if new structures aren’t built, another tragedy could be coming. Every building has cracks, and water will seep through and weaken the structure. The mountains themselves had one landslide after the other.

“A lot of the rocks and earth is loose in the mountains, and they will come apart when it rains. So we have to stay away from every spot that looks suspicious,” said Mandakini Devi.

At the district headquarters, aid has come once news spread that Charikot was one of the worst hit cities. There are contingents from the US, China and the Indian Army, with even the Nepal PM arriving on Thursday morning. While a lot of this aid has been food, medical supplies and tarpaulin sheets for immediate succour, some aid workers said that over the next few days, experts in reconstruction would arrive.

The relief workers will find a group of people that have kept their equanimity through disaster. If they go to Kharitunga at 5.30 in the evening, they will find a group of tired teenagers playing football after a day of putting together their village. On a small patch of flat land, with younger children lustily children cheering them on, and fetching errant balls that roll down the hill, they play. Even through an aftershock that comes at 7 pm.

Source:: Indian Express