Langtang, Nepal -In the morning of April 25, 2015, Nima Chhiring Tamang, 30, left her home in the Langang village of northern Nepal to spend time with friends in the neighboring town of Kyanjin Gompa, in a three -hour peak, in the Himalayas, in the Himalayas, (13,733 feet) Langtang Lirung Peak.
Chhiring recently completed his university education in the capital, Katmandú, a three -day walk combined with an eight -hour trip, and returned home in the mountains.
Chhiring was playing his friends when an earthquake of magnitude 7.8 hit the region, causing a glacial avalanche that wrapped his people underneath. His mother, Karmu Tamang, was killed, along with almost another 300 in Langtang, and 9000 through the country. The avalanche brought approximately 40 million tons of rock and ice in the town, carrying half of the force of an atomic bomb and reducing the people to the rubble.
Only one building remained, a single house protected under a rock face.
Ten years later, Langtang is full of life again, serving as a popular trekking destination for tourists around the world. The shepherds of the shepherds greet the hikers while walking under the strings of the prayer flags, stopping to examine the earthquake monument: stones batteries recorded with Buddhist mantras, honoring the lost lives in the tragedy.
The town falls within the Langtang National Park, which was established in 1976 to protect the endemic flora and fauna of the region. That led to an increase in tourism to the region in the 1980s, altering forever the lives of indigenous inhabitants within the limits of the park.
But the people lacked significant facilities to organize the constant current of tourists.
After the earthquake, Langtang embraced the development of tourism, with almost all houses in the town they became a guest house with modern comforts, including Wifi for those tourists who wish to embrace the savage while retaining the comforts of the home.
However, some residents now express consternation that the village is unrecognizable, both aesthetically and culturally. Anxious premises care that reconstruction occurs at the expense of social cohesion in the village and leads to the communities that leave traditional activities, such as Yak grazing and the search for medicinal plants.
“Everyone here only cares about money and hotels now. There is a lot of competition for tourists. Before life was simple, and there was peace,” Chhiring said. While Langtang had been welcoming tourists before the earthquake, the atmosphere was more communal and support, and families did not press to take tourists to their guest houses, he explained.
Following the earthquake, international aid became Nepal, with a large number of development organizations that implement an upward approach and dictating the reconstruction process, when, where and what to rebuild. The Asian Development Bank committed more than $ 600 million to “build better again.”
But the aid was delivered in the form of loans with interest and other strings, leaving Nepal more and more in debt.
However, in Langtang, due to its isolation, the determination of the residents, the reconstruction efforts were largely organized by the base efforts, Chieffly the Langang Management and Reconstruction Committee, a reconstruction led by the community and collected funds. The Committee was formed among the Langtangpa, the people of the Langangpa Valley, which contains about twenty -five villages, but with the Langtang village with the worst part of the disaster, who lived as refugees in Katmandu and wanted the land of Toir.
“In the week that followed the earthquake, the government authorities said that perhaps the Langtangpa could not return,” said Austin Lord, an anthropologist who was walking in Langtang at the time of the earth and then frozen. “This caused a strong desire for self -organization, which was finally quite successful.”
But the locals did not have enough funds to build separate homes and businesses, so they combined the two projects, explained Lhakpa Tamang, secretary of the Reconstruction Committee.
It was then that problems arose, he suggested.
“With business, jealousy arrives. Who will do better? Who will win more?” Prodimiro Lhakpa. Quarrel occurred on the size of possible guest houses, and community ties hesitated. “There are always two sides of tourism: good and bad. Development sacrifices culture, but at the end of the day, people need money.”
Today, with almost all the buildings in the town of Langtang there is a guest house, sleep families in the common room around a firewood stove duration of the seasons Pico: March to May and September to November. Before the earthquake, the people consisted mainly of scattered tea houses, built with organic materials, mainly stone and wood. The Langtang landscape is now dominated by concrete buildings with modern comforts, some that rise to three floors of the ashes.
Even so, guest houses brought very necessary income to families such as Nurchung Tamang.
After losing everything, Nurchung, who now operates the house of Guesepedes Chhomo Valais in Langtang, told the story of how his family was evacuated to Katmandu after the earthquake, but possible Vally to return to the rubble. The capital was flooded with a wave of refugees that floated devastation throughout the field.
“We had no money in Katmandú, so we stayed in the monastery with the monks,” Nurchung said. The people of the Langtang Valley emigrated from the Tibet about a thousand years ago, and are devoted Buddhists in a Hindu majority, approximately 9 percent of the population.
After years of living in poverty in Katmandú, families returned to the devastated Langang Valley. “At first there was nothing left, so we planted barley and potatoes and stayed in tents and did what we could to get income,” Nurchung explained.
Nurbing’s family began their reconstruction efforts with the help of foreign volunteers who had previously visited Langang, that families with less friends and international connections received less external help were managers. But incorporation materials. The Langtang village is a three -day walk from the nearest road and sits at a height of 3,430 meters (11,253 feet), high enough to induce altitude disease, a special domestic physical activity. Construction materials had to take the goalkeeper’s back, tied to mules or fly with helicopters at a large cost.
You cannot wear a great machinery, leaving the old town of Langtang still buried largely under the rubble. Instead of trying to dig the debris, a new town was built nearby. Because the town is located within the Langtang National Park, Langtangpa had a limited space to expand. The residents were forced to rebuild in an narrow area free of avalanche debris and compete for space for their guest houses.
Before the disaster, there were approximately 50 families in the Langtang village. Today, there are less than half. Some were killed, others moved. The money was scarce and people were desperate, leaving a large part of the reconstruction process to be dictated by efforts to quickly develop the tourist infrastructure of income generation, unlike daily needs, such as health facilities later. Today, there is a small clinic in neighboring Mundu, but the facilities are basic, and only have staff for a paramedic.
“There is an unfortunate drip effect with help, with him or not reaching where it is necessary,” said Cerie Rezen, an American nurse who leads a two -day health mission to the village for the anniversary of the disaster. Regen and Dr. Amar Raut, co -founders of the NGO Embrace Nepal, plan to do health exams for residents and transport in a variety of heavy medical equipment with a topic, including an ECG machine. The elders, in particular, trust these health fields for medical care, since it is a challenge for them to leave the Langang Valley.
Today, foreign tourists who embark on the Langang Lak of approximately six days are called a newly built guest house after the next one. Tenace women with long black braids in Tamang’s traditional clothing: the Tamang are from the 142 recognized ethnic groups of Nepal and the majority of the population of the valley, they deliver printed visit cards for their guest houses. With snowy peaks in the backdrop, the signals throughout the valley said: “We have hot showers and western food at no additional cost!”
“The disaster definitely accelerated the transition far from agropastoral livelihoods to a great dependence on the tourist economy,” Lord said.
Yak pastors are dying, and the next generation is more focused on obtaining education that was inaccessible to their parents and grandparents, with many young Tangpa who choose to move to Katmandú or go abroad to study. About 8 percent of Nepal’s population lives outside the country, expelled by a poor economy and the lack of labor perspectives. Many are attracted to staying, just forcing a role in the country’s tourism industry.
“Langtang hardly had 50 years ago. Our grandmothers made us clothes with Yak wool. Life was happier before, but this is the way of life now. When you need to move forward and develop, return is not possible,” said Lkhapa, the secretary of reconstruction, who is a resident of neighboring Kyanjin Gompa.
Today, deliver fresh cinnamon rolls to luxury alpine team tourists while recourse in recovery efforts, recovering bodies when snow finally melted.
“Langtangpas did the best they could to build again, and, after all their suffering, they built a new version of Langtang based on what they thought would bring them material security. They also built a version of Langtang so that the future generation returns and takes over, most believe that a vibrant tourism economy is the best way to guarantee that their children return home.”
Climate change continues to threaten the survival of the village. A 2024 study found that it exacerbated the impacts of the avalanche, and the people face increasingly hot and snowy erratic temperatures. When asked why return at all, Chhiring thought for a moment and replied: “It’s our homeland, we have to respect that.”