The drinking water supply to Rip village in Sarkegad Rural Municipality Ward 2 that was disrupted by landslides last Friday night, was repaired on Monday by security personnel including army and police.

Rip is one of the remotest villages of Humla in western Nepal.

According to Guru Karki, a 45-year-old man from Rip, after heavy rains on Friday, landslides occurred at four places and destroyed the water supply system, electricity, and four wooden bridges connecting Rip to other villages. Similarly, a couple of houses also sustained minor damage.

Karki said that there are 220 households in the village, and for three days they were forced to drink murky rainwaters from local creeks, which otherwise they would avoid. The village does not have a good natural spring as all dried up over the past few years.

After the landslide, a team of security personnel led by Lieutenant Pawan Pant of the Nepal Army visited the landslide-hit area on Saturday. According to Pant, the tank of the water supply system and the pipelines were badly damaged by the landslides. The landslides also completely destroyed the four bridges that connect the village with the rest of the rural municipality. The telecommunications system has also been disrupted since Friday after the electric poles were swept away by the landslides, said Pant.

After all the natural springs in the village dried up a couple of years ago, the village has been relying on piped water brought from a storage tank around 3 kilometres away.

According to Chief District Officer Shreenath Paudel, a joint team of the Nepal Army, Nepal Police, and Armed Police Force and the local residents repaired the damaged pipes and restored the water supply.

"Although the pipes have been repaired, we don’t know how long they are going to last. Even a small disruption can damage the pipeline. The pipes have cracked at many places and need to be replaced. Also there is an urgent need to relocate 40 families to a safer place, and arrange for food, clothes, and medicine, among other things," said Karki, the Rip resident.

According to Pant, around 40 houses in the village are at high risk of landslides, and the families have been taking shelter either at the houses of their relatives or in makeshift tents in safer places.

Paudel said that meetings are being held with security personnel and the District Disaster Committee for necessary action, but the elected officials of Sarkegad Rural Municipality have gone to Kathmandu on some business, due to which we are having difficulties making decisions.