Some 130 major accidents and thousands of minor ones are reported every day in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, says the country’s Traffic Directorate. At this rate, the roads are as deadly as the decade-long civil war that ended in 2006 after killing almost 18,000 people.
Rajju Shakya, 19, was driving her scooter to university in the capital last year. “There was a turning point at the junction. I switched on my sidelight and waited. Something hit from behind and I can’t remember anything else,” she said. Shakya lost both her legs below the knee as a result.
“The road traffic accident rate is frightening… The number of vehicles is increasing… The roads are narrow, and we don’t have enough space to expand these roads,” said Ashim Bajracharya, a senior lecturer in the architecture and urban planning department at Tribhuvan University’s Institute of Engineering, located in the capital.
The Word Health Organization’s (WHO) most recent Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study reported road traffic accidents as one of the fastest growing “epidemics” in the Southeast Asian region.
Most of the world’s road fatalities occur in low and middle-income countries, which have less registered vehicles, according to WHO.
The growing number of vehicles in Kathmandu has far outstripped road capacity, resulting in congestion that was fatal at times, Bajracharya said.
source: irinnews.org
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