Gorkha, October 29, 2026 — Apples harvested in the Manaslu region of northern Gorkha have been left in storage after floods damaged bridges and roads, leaving farmers and traders without a viable way to transport their produce to market.
Businessman Lakpa Dundup Lama said the lack of transportation options had forced him to keep apples in warehouses, where some of the harvested fruit has already started to spoil.
On Asoj 25, an avalanche in Chumnubri Rural Municipality-6 blocked the Ungilung stream, triggering a flood that washed away dozens of bridges and sections of roads along the Budhigandaki River. The disaster disrupted movement across the lower areas and blocked the Benighat–Aarughat–Larke road, regarded as a lifeline for northern Gorkha. The road was obstructed between Sirdibas in Chumnubri Rural Municipality and Arkhet in Aarughat.
The rural municipality and the Gorkha Road Project have been working to reopen the route temporarily. However, Lama said the repairs had not made it possible to transport apples.
“The rural municipality has managed to make a path for people to walk, but mules cannot use it. Transporting apples by mule is out of the question,” he said.
Lama grows several apple varieties in an orchard at Namrung in Chumnubri Rural Municipality-4, at an elevation of 2,650 metres. He said his apple farm, In Gorkha Product Pvt. Ltd., produced 100,000 kilograms of apples this year.
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The orchard has 12,500 trees of Gala, Golden, Red Delicious, King Delicious and Fuji varieties. Lama said harvesting had been completed for all varieties except Fuji, which was still awaiting harvest.
“We picked Gala and Golden Delicious a month ago, and they have already started to spoil,” he said.
Lama added that a flood in the Therang stream on Bhadau 21 had washed away a micro-hydropower project, leaving the farm without electricity. As a result, the dryer could not operate and the apples could not be processed into dried fruit.
Despite a good harvest this year, the transportation crisis has put hundreds of thousands of kilograms of apples at risk of being wasted, Lama said.
Transporting apples from the Manaslu region has been a recurring challenge, but this year’s floods have made the problem more severe. Moving apples from Namrung and surrounding areas to market by mule takes about a week. During the journey, an estimated 20 to 25 percent of the apples are lost because the fruit gets knocked against narrow trails or wilts in the sun, according to farmers.
Farmers said transporting apples by helicopter would raise costs and make the fruit difficult to sell at market prices.
“Even when half the apples were lost, we used to transport them by mule. Now the floods have damaged the bridges and roads, and even that option is gone. We are in a very difficult situation,” Lama said.
With no road network reaching the area, transporting apples and other agricultural products has long been difficult. As flood damage has made transportation nearly impossible, farmers have been trying to dry apples in the sun or process them into dried fruit and alcoholic beverages. Those with larger harvests, however, have few options beyond processing some of the produce and watching much of it rot, according to the source material.