Eight people were killed while one person was injured after a landslide buried an under-construction covered hall at Melamchi Municipality in Sindhupalchok district early Monday.

"The landslide occurred at Gaurabagar in Ward 11 of Melamchi Municipality at around 3:30 am, in which an under-construction covered hall was destroyed,” said Deputy Superintendent of Police Madhav Prasad Kafle.

“The victims were workers employed in the construction of the covered hall. The landslide buried half of the covered hall and the workers' quarters.”
The area had witnessed heavy rainfall throughout the night.

According to the Area Police Office in Melamchi, the bodies of eight workers were dug out by security personnel and locals on Monday morning.
One worker, a 35-year-old man from India, was rescued alive and airlifted to Kathmandu for treatment.

“Out of the nine workers at the construction site, two were Indian nationals while the rest were Nepalis,” said Kafle.

A team of the security personnel from the Area Police Office in Melamchi, Armed Police Force and Nepali Army were mobilised for search and rescue operation.

“The landslide occurred just above our settlement. The Gaurabagar hill had developed cracks during the 2015 earthquake and we have been living in terror since,” said Dipak Bikram Deuja, a local resident of Melamchi Bazaar.

He added the local authorities had not taken any measures to safeguard the settlement against landslides.

In a separate incident, a couple lost their lives after their house was buried by a landslide at Baruwa village in Panchpokhari Thanpal Rural Municipality in the district on Monday morning.

“A 49-year-old man and his 47-year-old wife died in the incident,” said police.

According to the data of the District Disaster Management Committee, 300 families in Sindhupalchok have been displaced in at least 24 incidents of landslides since Sunday night.