The victims of last year’s landslides in Taplejung have complained that the government has not taken any measures to mitigate the landslide risk in their villages.

Nearly 50 places in the district had witnessed landslides last monsoon and many among them are still vulnerable.

Lawmaker Bhupendra Thebe, who was elected from the district, said people living in some of the landslide-hit areas need to be resettled, but the government has not paid any attention to their concern. Thebe claimed that his attempt to draw the government’s attention to the issue in Parliament was met with disinterest.

Hari Bahadur Kunwar, the chief of District Soil Conservation Office, said most of the landslides had taken place because of weak soil structure which was made worse by the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake.

The District Natural Disaster Management Committee has listed Olangchungola, Lelep, Ikhabu, Lingkhim, Phurumbu, Hangdewa, Phungling, Nangkolyang, Chaksibote, Angkhop, Liwang, Khokling, Yamphudin, Tapethok and Sawadin, among other places, as high landslide-risk areas. But little has been done to prevent landslides from reoccurring in these places.

Taplejung had witnessed a series of landslides in the months that followed the 2015 earthquake at places like Liwang, Khokling, Thinglabu, Lingtep and Santhakra. As many as 59 people were killed and 72 families were displaced in those landslides.