The Madesh draught currently making national headlines is not a new issue. However, while historically struck by dry spells every two or so decades, the region has been facing drought with increasing frequency in recent years. A warmer climate and more erratic rainfall patterns are partly to blame. Yet, many localise the “root cause” closer to home, namely to the Chure belt “up in the hills”.

The Chure belt and its low hills along the flat Madhesh has undergone dramatic physical changes in recent decades. It used to be a landscape of forests on the ridges and slow-flowing rivers in the valleys, rich in dense vegetation cover and natural river basins, allowing rainwater to be retained and ponds to be filled.

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Villagers in Palanchok, Kavre, were hoping for the best. A Japanese-funded NGO pledging in May to rebuild 60 to 65 houses, however, did not return. It did clear some rubble with a dozer, following the villagers’ hard work of manually demolishing their house ruins. But after that no NGO showed up. By September, everybody was busy setting up temporary tin shelters instead. Watch how a family is getting back into some type of everyday rythm in the video opposite – it’s life under a tin roof, so common in thousands of villages at this time.

Watch the same family working hard and full of hope here, in May when the NGO had arrived.

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