In the shadow of the towering 7, 234-metre (13, 733-foot) Langtang Lirung peak, Nima Chhiring Tamang, 30, left his home in Langtang, in northern Nepal, on April 25, 2015, to spend time with friends in the nearby village of Kyanjin Gompa, a three-hour hike through the Himalayas.
Chhiring had recently completed his university education in the capital, Kathmandu, a three-day walk combined with an eight-hour drive away, and returned to his home in the mountains.
When a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck the area, Chhiring and his friends were playing cards when a glacial avalanche engulfed his village below. Near 300 people were killed in Langtang, including Karmu Tamang, his mother, and 9, 000 others nationwide. The avalanche brought an estimated 40 million tons of rock and ice bearing down on the village, carrying half the force of an atomic bomb and reducing the village to rubble.
A single house sheltered beneath a rock face was the only thing that was still standing.
Ten years later, Langtang is once again alive and well, making it a well-known trekking destination for visitors from all over the world. Grazing yaks greet hikers as they walk beneath strings of prayer flags, pausing to examine the earthquake memorial – stacks of stones etched with Buddhist mantras, honouring the lives lost in the tragedy.
The village is a part of the Langtang National Park, which was established in 1976 to safeguard the area’s unique and endangered flora and fauna. That led to a spike in tourism to the region in the 1980s, forever altering the lives of Indigenous inhabitants within the park’s boundaries.
However, the village was unable to accommodate the constant flow of visitors.
Following the earthquake, Langtang embraced tourism-driven development, with nearly every house in the village being converted into a guesthouse with contemporary amenities like WiFi for those who want to travel independently and enjoy the comforts of home.
Yet some residents now express dismay that the village is unrecognisable, both aesthetically and culturally. Locals who are concerned about the rebuilding causing communities to abandon traditional activities like yak herding and foraging for medicinal plants
“Everyone here is focused solely on hotel costs now,” the statement continued. There’s lots of competition for tourists. Before there was peace and simple things, Chhiring said. Before the earthquake, Langtang had been welcoming visitors, but families didn’t push to get people to stay in their guesthouses, he explained.
In the aftermath of the quake, international aid poured into Nepal, with a host of development organisations implementing a top-down approach and dictating the rebuilding process – how, when, where, and what to rebuild. To “build back better,” the Asian Development Bank committed more than $600 million.
Nepal’s debt became more and more severe as a result of the use of loans with interest and other strings, which was frequently provided.
However, in Langtang, residents’ determination and its isolation contributed to the majority of the organization’s rebuilding efforts, most notably the Langtang Management and Reconstruction Committee, a community-led initiative established three months after the earthquake to facilitate rebuilding and raise funds. The Langtangpa, the people of Langtangpa Valley, which includes roughly twenty-five villages but with Langtang Village bearing the brunt of the disaster, were a part of the committee, which wished to facilitate a quick return to their land.
“In the weeks that followed the earthquake, government authorities said maybe the Langtangpa wouldn’t be able to return”, explained Austin Lord, an anthropologist who was hiking in Langtang at the time of the earthquake and later published a dissertation at Cornell University on the disaster and its aftermath. This “sparked a strong desire to self-organize,” which was ultimately quite successful.
Locals combined the two projects, according to Lhakpa Tamang, secretary of the reconstruction committee, because they didn’t have enough money to build separate homes and businesses.
That’s when problems began to arise, he suggested.
“With business comes enviousness,” Who will do better, exactly? Who is gonna earn more”? lacked Lhakpa. Concerns were raised about the potential guesthouse size, and community ties sank. “There are always two sides of tourism: good and bad. People need money in the end, but development sacrifices culture.
Today, with nearly every building in Langtang Village is a guesthouse, families often sleep in the common room around a wood-burning stove during the peak seasons: March to May and September to November. The village’s primary residence was largely made of scattered tea houses, mostly made of stone and wood, before the earthquake. Today, Langtang’s landscape is dominated by concrete structures with contemporary amenities, some of which are three stories tall.
Still, the guesthouses brought badly needed income to families like that of Nurchung Tamang.
Nurchung, who runs the Chhomo Valais Guest House in Langtang after losing everything, recounted how his family was moved to Kathmandu after the earthquake but later made the decision to go back to the rubble. Refugees flooded the capital city as they fled the destruction in the countryside.
“We had no money in Kathmandu, so we stayed at the monastery with the monks”, said Nurchung. In a nation with a high Hindu population, the people of Langtang Valley, who emigrated from Tibet about a thousand years ago, are devout Buddhists.
Families began flooding back into the devastated Langtang Valley after years of living in poverty in Kathmandu. “There was nothing left at first, so we planted barley and potatoes and stayed in tents and did what we could to earn income”, explained Nurchung.
Nurching’s family began rebuilding with the assistance of foreign volunteers who had previously visited Langtang; this added conflicted with families with fewer international friends and connections, which also received less external assistance, but getting supplies was difficult. The elevation of 3, 430 meters (11, 253 feet) makes for altitude sickness, especially during strenuous physical activity, making it a three-day hike from the closest road. Construction materials had to be carried on the backs of porters, strapped to mules, or flown in with helicopters at huge expense.
The old Langtang Village is still largely buried beneath the rubble because large machinery cannot be brought in at all. Instead of attempting to excavate the debris, a new village was constructed nearby. The Langtangpa had limited space because the village is situated within Langtang National Park. Residents had to re-locate their guesthouses in a cramped area that was free of avalanche debris and to compete for space.
Before the disaster, there were approximately 50 families in Langtang Village. Less than half of the population is still alive today. Some people died, while others eluded. Money was scarce and people were desperate, leaving much of the rebuilding process to be dictated by efforts to rapidly develop income-generating tourism infrastructure, as opposed to daily necessities like healthcare facilities, which have not been built in the village 10 years later. In the nearby Mundu neighborhood, there is a small clinic today, but the staff is all paramedics and the facilities are basic.
A US nurse is assisting a two-day healthcare mission to the village to commemorate the anniversary of the disaster. “There is an unfortunate trickle-down effect with aid, with it frequently not reaching where it’s needed,” said Cherie Rezen, a US nurse. Rezen and Dr Amar Raut, co-founders of the NGO Embrace Nepal, are planning on doing health screenings for residents and carrying in a variety of heavy medical equipment with them, including an ECG machine. Because it is difficult for them to leave Langtang Valley, the elderly, especially, rely on these health camps for medical care.
Foreign tourists traveling on the roughly six-day Langtang Trek are greeted by one brand-new guesthouse after the next. Tenacious women with long black braids in traditional Tamang dress – the Tamang are one of Nepal’s 142 recognised ethnic groups and the majority of the population of the valley – hand out printed business cards for their guesthouses. Signs across the valley read, “We have hot showers and Western food at no extra cost” with snow-capped peaks in the distance.
According to Lord, “the disaster definitely accelerated the transition from agricultural-pastoral livelihoods to a significant dependence on the tourist economy.”
The next generation is more focused on getting a education that was previously unavailable to their parents and grandparents, with many young Langtangpa choosing to relocate to Kathmandu or study abroad. A poor economy and a lack of employment prospects drive about 8% of Nepal’s population to its extreme. Many are enticed to stay only by carving out a role in the country’s tourism industry.
“Fifty years ago, Langantua had hardly any tourism. Yak wool was used to make our clothing, according to our grandmothers. Life was happier before, but this is the way of life now. Going back is not possible when you need to advance and develop, said Lkhapa, the rebuilding secretary, who lives next to the Kyanjin Gompa.
He recounts his role in recovering bodies when the snow finally melted while giving out fresh cinnamon rolls to tourists dressed up as mountain goats.
“Langtangpas did the best they could to build back, and, after all their suffering, they built a new version of Langtang based on what they thought would bring them material security. They also constructed a version of Langtang for the next generation to retake control; the majority of them believe that a strong tourism industry is the best way to ensure their children return home.
Source: Aljazeera
Leave a Reply