Nepal may need between $4 billion and $5 billion to rebuild after devastating floods this week.
Axar.az reports, citing Reuters, that Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle on Saturday said a reconstruction bill is equivalent to nearly a tenth of the country’s economy.
“The initial estimate is between $4-$5 billion. Just an estimate,” Wagle said. “We will require much less than what we needed for the 2015 earthquake. Loss and damage is being assessed.”
The disaster began on Wednesday when a glacier collapse unleashed a torrent of rock, ice, mud and debris through Himalayan river systems, killing more than 600 people in Nepal and China’s Tibet, with more than 2,000 still unaccounted for.
The floods destroyed towns, swept away bridges and roads and damaged major hydropower stations in the border region.
The disaster is expected to hit Nepal’s economy, which relies heavily on remittances, tourism and hydropower. Damaged power projects account for more than 12% of the country’s national generating capacity.
Nepal’s 2015 magnitude-7.8 earthquake killed nearly 9,000 people and caused losses estimated at around a third of the economy, with reconstruction costs reaching about $9 billion.
Source: en.axar.az
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