Let's give life to Bungamati

Let's give life to Bungamati : Rehabilitation effort on water sectors of Bungamati

Bungamati, Karyebinayek- May 1st, 2015

 

Earthquake on April 25, 2015 has change the fate of Nepal. Likewise, Bungamati was celebrating the Machhindranath Jatra, and has to face this chaos.

The beautiful newari village of its own traditional style and cultural importance turned dead. Bungamati having the population of 650 household many of them are completely destroyed, few are cracked and very few are fine in old Bungamati area. And 8 human casualties have been recorded till May 1st, 2015 in this village. Earthquake doesn't killed people but also destroyed the physical structure like houses, temples, storage tanks, roads, etc.

Broken structures after earthquake

People are coping with situation by take a shelter under tent. And due to earthquake, in Chhoehel nanni, ward-10 also, 200 people are living in group under tent. They are cooking food at same stove and shared with each other. In this scenario earthquake has not only given the mental and physical pain but also has united people to rise together. In this situation, water and sanitation is the main challenge to Bungamati. Poor water quality and sanitation may leads towards the epidemics. So, these things should be acknowledged on time before it is too late.

People having shelter under the tent in Bungamati

Prior to earthquake are they were depending upon the KUKL(Kathmandu Upatekya Khanepani Sanstha). After the earthquake, they are depending upon the tanker water for drinking purpose. As the KUKL pipe which connects the source and reservoir tank is destroyed during earthquake. For secondary purpose; they are depending on traditional public wells and few on their private wells having poor quality of water. Out of 12 public well in Bungamati, only one is in use for drinking purpose and rest for secondary purpose. From this also we can imagine that how poor is the quality of water in well. Some well are contaminated with sewer drainage, few wells were surrounded with cemented structure which stops the infiltration, few were polluted and most of them have low quality of water.

Water extracted from well in Bungamati

In case of sanitation it is very poor. The open defecation is practiced after earthquake. There are only 7 toilets for 650 households. And the public toilet is also no more in use. It doesn't have any safety tank and it is discharged to private land. So there was a conflict between owner and community. And we can easily witness the poor sanitation status of the community. The pan was also broken in that public toilet. Also all the water bodies like pond, wells and spring look dirty.

Backside of public toilet has poor sanitation

After 5 days of earthquake lime was spread over the public toilet and few temporary toilet were build in different point of communities. Also, the sewer drainage is connected near to water sources. These should be addressed while rebuilding Bungamati

 

 

 

 

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