Nepal Police race to secure bank vaults washed away in flash floods

Apart from searching for hundreds of people missing in the flash floods, Nepal’s police are facing another daunting task of tracing and securing missing vaults of at least 20 banks washed away in the deluge and preventing them from falling into the wrong hands. Some of these vaults contain huge amounts of cash and other valuables, officials told TOI Monday.

DIG Abi Narayan Kafle said that amid the challenging post-flood situation, the force’s first priority is to look for those missing, but at the same time they need to maintain law and order in the affected areas. “There were banks in Rasuwa, Dhading, Chitwan, and other places that were significantly damaged. Many of their vaults containing cash and other valuable items such as gold were either washed away or got buried under heavy silt. Our personnel are now putting all their efforts to find and secure those vaults. There have been incidents where people broke open the washed-away vaults and stole cash.”

The development came after police in Dhading district arrested 29 people for allegedly stealing NPR 92 lakh from a washed-away vault from the Upper Rasuwa area. “On Sunday evening, our personnel managed to secure a vault of the Agricultural Development Bank’s Dhunge branch in Trishuli. The task took them nearly eight hours,” Kafle said. He added the vault had NPR 1.5 crore cash and other valuables, including gold worth NPR 50 crore. In another instance, police secured a vault of ‘Krishi Vikas Bank’, Nuwakot. The police spokesperson further said the force has deployed 7,894 personnel in the ongoing rescue operations.