This wreck above was until two weeks ago Tara Bahadur Thada's home in Gothadi, 35km from Tansen. Then two bombs exploded simultaneously, killing nine people, and orphaning 18 young children.
Details on the explosion are still sketchy, but it is understood to have been caused by a bucket bomb that was to be used to demolish a road. Local resident Dhana Kumari Thada says the bomb was made available by CPN-M Gothadi in-charge Chet Bahadur Gamcha and brought in from his house. The locals believe there are more explosives in Gothadi.
The explosion killed two children-seven-year-old Jiban Kumar Thada and 45-day-old Buddhi Bahadur Thada. Four-year-old Human Bahadur Thada and his 15-month-old sister Dhanusa have no idea what happened to their parents(below).
They are being looked after by their aunt Debi Thada. The orphaned children keep asking surviving relatives where their mothers and fathers are. The widows do not know how they will take care of their children.
The incident underscores the lack of attention being given to collecting and defusing the hundreds, possibly thousands, of improvised explosive devices, war leftovers, that are scattered around the country.
Gothadi police in-charge Parshuram Joshi says the bombs belonged to the Maoists and that how the explosives reached Gothadi and the circumstances of the explosion are under investigation, but local residents do not want to talk.
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District Children Welfare Committee, Palpa program coordinator Bishnu Prasad Pokhrel says, "Even during the conflict we rarely had so many children orphaned all at once. Such incidents bring back the war, they make healing more difficult."
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