The authorities of Nepal have raised this Thursday to more than 1,250 the dead due to the devastating floods recorded last week in northern Nepal, on the border with China, while highlighting that more than 4,200 people remain missing more than a week after the disaster.
The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA) and the Nepalese Police have published bulletins estimating 1,252 bodies recovered, including 355 in Chitwan, one of the epicenters of search and rescue operations.
Likewise, they have estimated 4,216 missing, including 583 foreigners and around 900 workers from hydroelectric projects in the area affected by the flood. On the other hand, 11,993 people have been rescued, including 273 foreigners, while 5,135 have received medical treatment.
To the figures offered by Nepal are added at least 21 dead and around 550 missing in Chinese territory—including 261 foreign citizens—according to the authorities of the Asian giant, as well as three bodies recovered in India.
In this context, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned that at least 22,000 children urgently need drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene support, due to damage suffered by supply systems in all affected districts.
“All parents in these districts now ask themselves the same question several times a day. Where can I get water? Is it safe to give to my child?” explained the organization’s representative in the Asian country, Alice Akunga.
Read more U.S. announces interception in the Pacific of a vessel linked to the criminal gang Los Choneros
“When water supply systems and toilets have been damaged or destroyed, and dozens of people share the same space, families face enormous difficulties maintaining safe hygiene,” she stated, before adding that the risk of contracting waterborne diseases “increases rapidly under these conditions.”
However, she emphasized that this “can be prevented” and insisted that “ensuring access to drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene is one of our main priorities at this time,” efforts in which UNICEF participates by sending water, sanitation, and hygiene supplies for about 19,000 people in Rasuwa and Nuwakot.
“Restoring communities’ access to drinking water and sanitation is not a task that can be done in a week,” Akunga stressed. “Today we can provide water treatment products and emergency supplies, and that is what we are doing,” she added.
Therefore, she noted that “it is also necessary to repair and rebuild water supply systems, pipes, pumps, toilets, and other sanitation infrastructure that have been damaged.”
“They must be rebuilt to withstand future floods, not simply restored as they were before. We have to make communities safer and more resilient. Otherwise, we will have the same conversation after the next disaster, and it will be the children who pay the price once again,” she concluded.
Read more Trump says the latest attack against Iran was «tough» and destroyed new military equipment
