A swollen and roaring Trishuli River swept away two passenger buses on July 12. The fact that the buses and most of the passengers are yet to be found has compounded the tragedy and grief of the families. The failure of rescue groups in this incident indicates that our existing mechanisms and disaster preparedness need to be revised, and the country needs heightened vigilance in the coming days.

Right since the accident, the Nepal Police, the Armed Police Force, and the Nepal Army have tirelessly toiled in search and rescue on Simaltal section of the Muglin-Narayanghat road and subsequently in other areas too. However, locating the bus and passengers in the raging river is proving to be as hard as searching for a needle in a haystack. The experienced rescuers from the Indian National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) joined their Nepali counterparts with two magnets weighing 19 kg and 14 kg each and advanced sonar devices but they had to return empty-handed. Officials say they are now mulling over reaching out to its northern neighbour, China, for some help.

Nepali rescuers’ efforts are praiseworthy, but they are apparently ill-equipped both in terms of skills and advanced tools for the intended goal. Much time was wasted in the initial days of the Simaltal incident; when the Indian team arrived, it was too late for them to make much difference. While there is nothing wrong in asking for help from our two neighbours, effective disaster management begins at a community or local level. People in the vicinity should be equipped to immediately mobilise after such disasters with the right sets of tools and knowhow.

What’s concerning is that such a deadly incident in Trisuli is not isolated. Over the past eight years, as reported in Nepalkhabar, 55 people have gone missing aboard 21 vehicles that plunged into the Trishuli River on the Muglin-Narayanghat road and the Muglin-Mowakhola section of the Prithvi highway. Similarly, six vehicles lost in the past 32 years have never been found. This suggests something is badly amiss in disaster preparedness on our treacherous highways.

The monsoon this year has been harsh, and rainfall patterns are ever-changing. Amid this, the authorities have tried to evade their responsibility of building engineeringly sound roads, heeding experts and arranging for right tools for search and rescue. Poor roads and haphazard road construction, in turn, result in landslides. Due to random road construction, and expansion projects that involve bulldozing the cliffs/hills adjoining the roads, the risk of disasters in most of Nepal’s highways continues to be high.

Many stretches on the Muglin-Narayanghat Road and Prithvi Highway are in the red zone, and they need proper monitoring and surveillance as well as dedicated human and financial resources to prepare for a disaster that might occur any time of the year. Besides, the government should prioritise upskilling the rescuers in line with the changing weather patterns and disaster types.

If the government doesn’t learn from the Simaltal tragedy and plan its disaster preparedness and responses accordingly, no highway or season in Nepal will be safe to travel. The wait-and-see approach and the tendency to swing into action only after the fact will continue to exact a heavy toll in terms of human deaths and injuries.