The Bhutanese Leading the way.
The Department of Disaster Management (DDM) has reported that the scale of damages caused by Wednesday’s flash flood in Gasa is still unknown.
Director General (DG) of Department of Disaster Management Namgay Wangchuk said because of inaccessibility towards the field study extent of damages cannot be known.
“Our Dzongkhag team went for the detailed survey and they are also stuck there,” he said.
Most damages have occurred on roads and bridges, on paddy fields, cow sheds, houses, electric poles on the ground and so on but no casualties has been reported as of now.
“About 250 meter stretch of road is totally damaged, though at few points there are various,” the DG said explaining that fresh cutting needs to be done on the damaged roads which is expensive and won’t be stable in the rainy season. “It will take time to stabilize. It is almost one fourth acre or kilometer,” he said.
To restore the damages, Department of Road (DoR) has reached excavator and backhoe and they would try to bulldoze some of the minor blockades.
According to reports, if it rains day and night, rest of the hill side will come falling and over a longer period, if huge torrential rain continues it will trigger flash flood and landslide.
The DG said public notification has been given through the broadcast media to be alert especially to the vulnerable community and low line areas like Wangdue, Punakha.
He said people of Wangdue and Punakha have already been trained and they know where to run and also the evacuation site has been identified.
DG Namgay Wangchuk said people need not evacuate the place but have to be alert and people will be pre-alarmed if they need to do, so that they take their belongings with them.
The detailed survey report will be done, as soon as the route is cleared for the survey.
