Experts question whether to rebuild beside the river that destroyed it
Workers shoveled thick mud from a flood-ravaged power station in Nepal’s Dhading district, working to revive a key node that supplies electricity to more than 20,000 people as they cleared debris from equipment buried by last week’s catastrophic floods.
The Independent Power Producers’ Association of Nepal reported up to 900 workers unaccounted for from a dozen hydropower projects, with hundreds believed trapped in tunnels.
Across Nepal and China combined, the floods have left more than 900 people dead and 4,700 missing.
The hydropower losses are estimated at 700 megawatts taken offline — about 10% of Nepal’s total power capacity.
Disaster experts said the broader question of how to restore power, roads, bridges, schools and health facilities quickly without rebuilding the same vulnerabilities should be at the top of Nepalese authorities’ minds as the immediate aftermath of the disaster is addressed. At the Dhading station, the longer question, according to disaster experts, was whether the plant should simply be rebuilt in the same place, beside the river that destroyed it.