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| About
Nepal |
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Nepal
is located between
India and China, nestled against a
backdrop of the Himalayan range. Eight
of the world's ten highest peaks are
found within its borders. Nearly half
of Nepal's 24 million residents make
their homes in the Himalayan foothills.
Rugged terrain and snow-fed rivers
are familiar obstacles to these hearty
people, but more significant, |
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| On
the way to
Midim River Bridge Site |
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perhaps, are the multitudes of seasonal
streams which rise and fall unpredictably
during the three to four month Nepali
monsoon. These rain-fed waterways create
a hazardous and perplexing problem for
villagers whose only access to fundamental
services like education and health care
might be just on the other side of an
unfordable river. |
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Simple
outings to school, health posts, markets,
farm lands, or community meetings
become uncertain, time consuming,
and often extremely dangerous. The
nearest bridge may be hours away,
and the return trip on the opposite
side of the river, another long walk.
Limited access to schools means that
some children simply do not receive
an education. In emergency situations,
a long journey to the health post
often results in unnecessary death.
The people of rural Nepal are faced
with such tragedies everyday. |
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Villagers
resourcefully lay logs across
small streams, or build cantilevered
bridges where possible, replacing
them at great effort
when they are swept away by
the monsoon. For bridging wider
distances, there have been only
two alternatives -- a tween,
or a suspension bridge.
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| Ladies
fording Sumari River with
grass cut for fodder
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| Tween
found on Trishuli River |
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A tween is a large multi-stranded
cable stretched between the riverbanks.
Often times installed by local
villagers, tweens can be unreliable
and extremely dangerous. Inadequate
anchoring (often using trees),
and poor planning can result in
uneven anchors, causing dangerous
speeds going one way on the wire,
and arduous pulling in the opposite
direction. To move along the wire,
one must grasp and pull on the
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itself, running the risk of losing
fingers beneath
the steel trolley that rolls along
the wire. Carriages, if they exist,
are often poorly constructed,
fragile, and unstable. |
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The
Bhumlichowk people in the picture
above replaced their tween with a
TarPul, completed in December 2002.
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Suspended and suspension structures,
although excellent, high capacity
solutions to the rural access
problem in Nepal, are also very
expensive and time-consuming to
build. For most village communities,
finding funds to support the construction
of a suspended bridge is only
a distant dream. |
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For
more details, e-mail us: ecosystems@wlink.com.np |
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