Properties worth around Rs30 million have been damaged in the Kathmandu University School of Arts (SoA) and School of Education (SoE) when the floods triggered by incessant rainfall on Saturday afternoon entered the university premises in Hattiban, Lalitpur.

All the classrooms and halls on the ground floor of the schools have been 

inundated, forcing the university to shut its classes for a week. 

According to Dr Sagar Raj Sharma, acting dean of KU SoA, the Department of Fine Arts has lost a large collection of rare and valuable books after floodwaters from the Hattiban farm of the National Potato Research Programme of Nepal Agricultural Research Council, inundated the university compound. 

“Our media lab has been completely damaged. The acoustic media lab worth over Rs4.5 million has been used to produce television and radio programmes,” said Dr Sharma. “We plan to resume classes by next Sunday after we fix the classrooms and other necessary equipment.” 

According to university staff, the swollen Karmanasa river burst its banks and flooded the roads on Saturday morning. “Floodwaters brought down the school’s compound wall and inundated the potato farm,” explained Padam Karki, administrative staff of the KU. “Once the farm was submerged, the floodwaters began gushing into our premises. And soon the entire compound was deluged.”

The KU’s School of Arts has been running Bachelors programmes in economics, community development and media studies and Masters programmes in development studies and human and natural resources studies at its Hattiban campus. Similarly, School of Education runs Masters programmes in sustainable development and other Mphil and Phd courses.