As the monsoon enters the major parts of country Nepal, heavy rainfall has been experienced by the airports in the Mithila region of South Eastern part of country. Janakpur has submerged under a couple of feet of water after the continuous rainfall.
Seeing shoes on hand of several passengers travelling to and fro the airport have created a bizarre seen. With shoes on hands and their baggage carried roughly, passengers were escaping from the rainfall before boarding the aircraft. Might sound funny but this is a real dark side of aviation industry of Nepal where major domestic airports are lagging behind because of this kind of circumstances that could be avoided if a better attention had been provided.
Meanwhile, Simkot airport released the information that the airport was forced to cancel all the flight en-route from Nepalgunj to Simikot due to the bad weather.
Recently, Main airport lying on the Heart of Eastern Nepal (Biratnagar Airport) has been flooded due to heavy rain halting all the flight operation for a week. A Private airline Shree Airlines which parked the aircraft on Biratnagar Ramp is now on the danger of floating which shows that aviation of Nepal is struggling through a very narrow path squeezing through a lot of obstacles seems like nature is hitting it hard as always. A lot of domestic airports of Nepal are still under shadow with no proper management and no appropriate physical infrastructure because of which most of the people generally imagine Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu when they think about an airport. A lot of problem striking the operations of this domestic airport of Nepal is not uncommon.
On February this year, CAAN had conducted Four day long workshop on getting airports arranged to handle disaster on which thirty officials from government agencies, airport authorities along with military and humanitarian partners were the attendee which now need to be implemented on this current situation.
Since airport plays a vital role in quick landing and connecting humanitarian and relief supplies after a calamity and it has adequate infrastructure to deliver the lifesaving support to the affected communities. So the airport team needs to be well trained about the necessary protocols which include handling of heavy air traffic and flow of supplies along with the rescue officers.
Analyzing the lesson left behind by the quakes, Nepal’s airport authorities, Home Ministry officials, Nepal Army and various humanitarian organization officers had come together to strengthen the post-disaster preparedness management at TIA and Nepalgunj airport.
