Kathmandu, Aug. 31 -- Workers shovelled thick mud from a flood-ravaged power station in central Nepal, trying to revive a key node that supplies electricity to more than 20,000 people. But as they cleared debris from equipment buried by last week's catastrophic floods, there was hope the plant would not simply be rebuilt in the same place, beside the river that destroyed it.
In Nepal, up to 900 workers are unaccounted for from a dozen hydropower projects, according to the Independent Power Producers' Association, Nepal, with hundreds believed trapped in tunnels. In Nepal and China combined, over 900 people have died and 4,700 are missing.
The loss of hydropower infrastructure is estimated to have taken 700 megawatts offline -- about 10 per cent of the country's power capacity. Once the immediate aftermath of the disaster is dealt with, the question of how to restore power, roads, bridges, schools and health facilities quickly without rebuilding the same vulnerabilities should be on top of Nepalese authorities' minds.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.