The 7.8 magnitude earthquake killed nearly 9,000 people and destroyed more than 800,000 homes.

Rose Gamble from Gorkha region, Nepal

On a flat section of riverbank a temporary village has been erected. A series of blue plastic tarpaulins have been stretched between poles to form roofs. Sheets of corrugated iron, glinting sadly in the sun, form haphazard walls and doors. Mules have ploughed the section of empty ground running through the centre of the village into mud. A little girl, calf-deep in cloggy earth, is picking her way across it.

This is ‘Man Village’, built hastily when its occupants’ former homes were flattened in a massive earthquake on 25 April 2015, the worst natural disaster to strike Nepal since 1934.

The 7.8 magnitude earthquake killed nearly 9,000 people and destroyed more than 800,000 homes. The remote Manaslu district, in Gorkha region, where we are walking is just east of the quake’s epicentre. Almost exactly two years on, it remains littered with evidence of the earthquake.

Earlier we had passed a guesthouse that had literally been split in two. Jagged bricks gaped open on either side of scattered rubble like broken teeth. Boulders the size of small cars had been built into bamboo fences and the plastic tarpaulins used to wrap aid bales, some still printed with the names of agencies – Caritas, UNHCR, Pakistan emergency aid – masqueraded as shop awnings or as temporary roofing.

As we continued on our way upward, ‘Man Village’ retreating below into a patchwork of blue and brown, I asked our guide, a wiry Sherpa named Dawa, if its occupants are receiving help in the reconstruction process. He looked confused.

There were some aid drops and packages that arrived initially, he explained. “It’s difficult, he added. “The area is very remote.”

In that particular village 39 people were killed outright. It then took eight days for anyone to reach the area, by which time many more of the injured had died.  

And now? I asked. Is there help for these people?

“The government says they will help. But no, these people are very far away. They will just carry on,” says Dawa.  

En route to the region, I’d picked up a copy of the Kathmandu Times. “Reconstruction moves at a snail’s pace,” bemoaned the headline.

According to Nepal’s National Reconstruction Authority, just five per cent of the destroyed houses have been rebuilt. Around 800,000 families are either homeless or living in temporary accommodation.

Immediately after the disaster, the international community came together to raise US$4.1bn for Nepal's reconstruction. Those funds, plus locally raised revenues, were meant to be disbursed in tranches to households needing to rebuild their homes.

However, according to National Reconstruction Authority, many of those rendered homeless by the earthquake have yet to receive anything at all of the promised funds.

In order to receive a grant, an earthquake survivor must provide land ownership documents. Most of Nepal’s rural communities are unable to prove they own the land on which they were living when the earthquake struck, so have been denied reconstruction support. Furthermore, in order to collect their grant, people – including the elderly or people with disabilities  – have to travel long distances to collect their money from bank distribution centres.

‘Man Village’ is two and a half days walk from the nearest road. It’s then five hours by local bus to a town large enough to boast a bank and a further four and a half hours by bus to Kathmandu. In the monsoon season the road – which is dirt and deeply furrowed - turns to mud, becoming completely impassable. I wonder how many of these villagers would even attempt the journey, let alone start the process of accessing a grant.

The most successful recovery efforts lie with overseas aid agencies. The Catholic aid agency, Cafod, has been funnelling donations into rebuilding homes in 15 of the worst-affected areas. The agency has also been running workshops, teaching skills to women who lost their husbands in the disaster so as to enable them to earn a living. These provisions, although vital, are only available to a relatively small number of those in need.

Tourism

With little hope of government funding reaching these remote villages, tourism has become vital to recovery. Since the trail reopened last year, almost every settlement we pass through has set itself up to benefit from the steady string of backpack clad hikers. Villagers run ‘tea houses’ and tout Coke, bottled water and cheap Chinese hiking boots from trail-side stores. On one particularly remote stretch, a grey-haired Hindu woman dressed in a scarlet sari, her thin arms heavy with brass bangles, tries to sell us tubes of Pringles. 

When trekkers stopped coming in the aftermath of the earthquake much of the Manaslu area ground to an economic halt, as the income of thousands dried up overnight.

Elections

Back in Kathmandu, posters of parliamentarians have been plastered on to peeling walls. Later this month Nepal will hold the second phase of local elections - the first in almost 20 years. These 34,203 directly elected representatives will give local communities a louder voice in national decisions. With the independent authority to mobilise local resources these officials should be able to make faster decisions. They can monitor progress in earthquake reconstruction efforts and guard against the misuse of funds.

Ideally they will become a connection between Nepal’s central government, citizens and donor agencies. Their first priority should be earthquake recovery.