Basanta Raj Adhikari, an engineering geologist at the Institute of Engineering in Nepal\u2019s Tribhuvan University, pulled out data from his yet-to-be-published research as he spoke to me on Skype in late August. He told me the death figures due to landslides in Nepal. \u201cBetween 1972 and 2016 a total of 5,190 people lost their lives in 3,419 landslide events on record,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
While Adhikari was explaining past tragedies, headlines in Kathmandu were dominated by the search operation to retrieve dead bodies after a landslide in Lidi village<\/a>, near the Koshi river in the district of Sindhupalchowk bordering Tibet. Thirty-nine people died. Only a few kilometres away, in 2014 156 people were killed after a massive landslide swept away another village, Ramche, and blocked the Koshi.<\/p>\n Read: <\/strong>Nepal\u2019s landslide survivors struggle to live<\/a><\/p>\n According to a report by the United Nations\u2019 Food and Agriculture Organization published in 2011, Nepal has one of the highest fatalities from landslides in the world. \u201cBetween 1950 and 2009, the frequency of fatal landslides was highest in China, followed by Indonesia, India, the Philippines, Japan, Pakistan and Nepal. These seven countries accounted for 87% of the 17,830 landslide-related fatalities reported during that time period in Asia,\u201d the report<\/a> said.<\/p>\n Relative to population, Nepal has the highest fatality rate in the world.<\/p>\n Since 2017 (after the time period studied in Adhikari\u2019s research paper), an additional 490 people have been killed by landslides, according to recent government data<\/a>. This year alone, 243 have died and 51 are missing. This is the second highest of confirmed casualties on record in the past 10 years, and nearly three times higher than 2019.<\/p>\nCounting the bodies<\/h2>\n