Six people were killed in a landslide at Chherlobang on the Gharti Gaun-Thabang road section along Shahid Marga on Thursday night.

The bodies of the deceased were recovered from the incident site on Friday. According to police, the deceased are Shir Kumari Budhamagar, 28; her four-year-old son Asal; Jaya Budhamagar; his wife Muljyoti; and their two daughters (both under two years of age). They were killed after the landslide buried the house they were living in, at Thabang Rural Municipality Ward No. 2, according to police.

Laxman Dhakal, chief district officer, said that police retrieved the bodies of the deceased during the rescue operation.

The area had witnessed continuous rainfall for the past three days. The landslide occurred on the under-construction Shahid road stretch. Chitra Gurung, deputy superintendent of police, said that all of the bodies were retrieved from the landslide debris. Gurung said, “All of the deceased were taking shelter at Shir Kumari’s house from Thursday noon fearing that their own houses would be swept away by a looming landslide.”

The incident site is around 60 kilometres from Libang, the district headquarters of Rolpa. Bir Bahadur Ghartimagar, chairman of the rural municipality, says the incident took place as a result of unsustainable construction of the Shahid road. “The contractor company, Kumar Tamang JV, started construction of the road without conducting a technical survey. This disaster wouldn’t have occurred if the hill was left untouched in the first place,” said Ghartimagar.

The Post tried to contact the representatives of the contractor company several times but they were unavailable for comment.

The local unit has provided Rs 25,000 (per person) as compensation to the victims' families. Police personnel from Thabang, Gharti Gaun, Kureli, Mirul and Iribang have reached the incident site to conduct the rescue operation.

The District Security Committee has decided to send a doctor’s team in the village to conduct a postmortem of the deceased. Vehicular movement along the road has been obstructed after the landslide swept away the road sections at Gharti Gaun, Korchabang, Iribang and Kureli areas. “We have been making preparations to send a team of health workers, including Dr Prakash Bahadur Budha from the district hospital, to conduct the postmortems,” said Dhakal.

However, the team of health workers will only reach Chherlobang on Saturday as vehicular movement along the road section has come to a halt due to multiple landslides.