About 150 people have died in landslides and flash flooding brought on by torrential rains in Nepal, according to officials, who also announced that schools in flood-affected areas will close in the next few days.
The directive was issued on Sunday, when officials reported that parents and students were having problems and that university and school structures damaged by the storms needed to be repaired.
A representative for the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology, Lakshmi Bhattarai, told the Reuters news agency, “We have urged the concerned authorities to close schools in the affected areas for three days.”
“With the country at a halt due to torrential rains, Nepal closes its schools.”
Over the weekend, flash floods in the rivers that run through the nation’s capital, Kathmandu, reportedly swamped entire areas. The highways that connected the city to the rest of Nepal were also harmed by the floods.
Rainfall of up to 322.2 mm (12.7 in) was recorded in several areas of Kathmandu, experts claimed, raising the major Bagmati River’s level by 2.2 meters (7 feet) above the danger zone.
At a location on a major route into Kathmandu, television footage showed police rescuers in rubber boots that reached up to their knees removing dirt with picks and shovels in order to collect the 16 remains of passengers from two buses that had been carried away by a massive landslide.
(Aljazeera)
