Nepal; village in the Rapti Valley, Terai, 1986

Nepal, village in the Rapti Valley, Terai region, 1986. Houses constructed with bamboo cane walls plastered with mud and cow dung, and topped with straw thatch or tile roof. Villages in the Terai are clusters of 30-100 or more dwellings. In the mid-1980s, serious deforestation in the Himalayan hills caused monsoon rains to run off the hills and tumble through the Terai, flooding crops and tearing away roads and houses.