On April 25, 2005, Nepal was hit by a magnitude 7.8 earthquake. Its epicenter was located 80 km northwest of the capital, Kathmandu. In total, the earthquake left 8,970 people dead, 199 missing, 22,302 injured, and about 770,000 houses destroyed [Chamlagain and Ngakhusi 2017: 27–29]. The earthquake produced a large amount of debris, yet except for certain areas in the capital, the government took hardly any action to remove this debris, which was left lying on the streets for months. This was also true of the village of Panga in the Kathmandu Valley, where I conducted my research. Debris from collapsed houses clogged the streets, and villagers had to emigrate outside of the village to live. As a result, the interiors of the village became empty, dangerous, and haunted, a place where bhuts (ghosts) wandered around. This situation continued for almost four months without either the government or residents taking the initiative to remove the debris. However, as the time for a mourning ritual (called sāpāru) approached, the streets were quickly cleared. I will describe and analyze this process as exemplifying the nature and challenges of the “production of locality” [Appadurai 1996] under the conditions of a modern disaster.
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