Nepal villagers sleep in school as landslide threatens homes

Residents of Thapagaun Pahire in Nepal's Sindhupalchok district face a daily ordeal as a landslide creeps downhill, threatening to bury their homes. For nearly two months, families like that of 66-year-old Ganesh Bahadur Thapa have been sleeping in classrooms at a local school, returning to their houses only during the day to work their farms and manage household tasks.

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We come to the school as we are afraid to sleep at home at night. During the day, we have no choice but to return home. We have to look after the house and work the fields.

"We come to the school as we are afraid to sleep at home at night. During the day, we have no choice but to return home. We have to look after the house and work the fields," Thapa said. He expressed the residents' desperation when a delegation from the Rastriya Swatantra Party visited, with some villagers breaking down as they described their uncertainty.

"Where are we supposed to go? What are we supposed to do? Cracks are spreading, and we can no longer even farm the land. Who will listen to us?" Thapa pleaded, asking the delegation to convey their message to the prime minister. The landslide has put nine houses at high risk, forcing families like Laxmi Khatri's and Ram Sundar Thapa's to seek shelter in classrooms.

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Where are we supposed to go? What are we supposed to do? Cracks are spreading, and we can no longer even farm the land. Who will listen to us?

The land above the settlement has been sinking and sliding since 2014, with the 2015 earthquake accelerating the process. Residents, whose main livelihood is agriculture, fear being forced to abandon their homes and farmland. They are demanding immediate relocation to safer ground and risk reduction measures, living in a precarious routine of school at night and home by day, under the constant fear that the slope could give way at any moment.

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The school has been merged, so there is no immediate problem staying in the building. But we are becoming increasingly desperate because we do not know how long we will have to live like this.