AP PHOTOS: Cascading disasters push residents of a Nepalese valley to the brink

MELAMCHI, Nepal (AP) — In between the Himalayas' towering mountains, the town of Melamchi is no stranger to extreme weather, and its landscape bears the scars of years of floods and landslides.

Located just 50 kilometers (31 miles) outside Kathmandu, lush green mountainsides are dotted with landslips and rubble. Amid the debris, people live and work, and children play.

Saroj Lamichane, a 24-year-old resident of the region, says he still remembers “the terrifying sound of the flood.” Lamichane fled that night, returning only to collect belongings wedged between boulders and broken walls.

Many houses in Melamchi are on stilts to avoid the worst of the flooding. Still, floors are covered in a layer of loose rock. Windows have been ripped out of walls. And some buildings still slant after Nepal's devastating 2015 earthquake.

Farms are also not spared.

Sukuram Tamang, 50, lost his land and field to floods in 2021, and his home was damaged in a landslide this year. When The Associated Press visited, Tamang stood holding one of his goats — a literal handful of what survived Melamchi's incessant weather extremes.

“Even the little that remained has been swept away by floods earlier this year,” said Tamang's wife, Maya. “The river used to be a 20-minute walk from our house but during the floods, we were shocked to see it overflow and wash away everything we had.”

Another farmer, Sita Pandit, 50, took a loan to rebuild her home that was destroyed in the earthquake. But one year after construction finished, her new home was swept away by the 2021 floods. Rocks and debris now cover her farm.

In a 2021 report, the Kathmandu headquartered International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development found that cascading hazards are becoming more common in Nepal and the Hindu Kush Himalaya.

Rising temperatures are leading to heavy glacial melt and glacial lakes overflowing. They also lead to shifting rainfall patterns which bring heavy sediments downstream, said Sudan Bikash Maharjan, one of the authors of the 2021 report.

Maharjan said local and federal governments need to be better prepared and give people time to evacuate.

Until then, many work hard to rebuild their old lives. People reconstruct homes among the debris or build new ones entirely. They walk and live among pieces of homes and furniture. Layers of mud cover up the lives they once lived.

Follow Niranjan Shrestha on Instagram.

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A girl runs in front of the recent landslide at Gyalthum, Melamchi, northeast of Kathmandu, Nepal, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

Abandoned houses are visible in Chanaute Market, northeast of Kathmandu, Nepal, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

Footprints are visible at Chanaute Market, Melamchi, northeast from Kathmandu, Nepal, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, on the sand inside a house damaged by floods in 2021. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

A man gazes out from an abandoned house in Chanaute Market, Melamchi, northeast of Kathmandu, Nepal, on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, damaged by floods in 2021. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

A man walks by abandoned houses in Chanaute Market, Melamchi, northeast of Kathmandu, Nepal, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, damaged by floods in 2021. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

Saroj Lamichane salvages bricks from the ruins of his house northeast of Kathmandu, Nepal, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024, that was destroyed by floods in 2021. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

The sand-filled entrance of a house is visible in Chanaute Market, Melamchi, northeast of Kathmandu, Nepal, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, that was damaged by floods in 2021. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

Sukuram Tamang, 50, prepares to cook food inside a temporary shelter on rented land in Melamchi, northeast of Kathmandu, Nepal, on Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024, after he lost his home in a landslide. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

Rocks and sand fill an abandoned home in Melamchi, northeast of Kathmandu, Nepal, June 26, 2024, that was damaged by floods in 2021. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

A man sets a fish trap near homes abandoned after flooding at Chanaute Market, Melamchi, northeast of Kathmandu, Nepal, on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

Sukuram Tamang, 50, stands with his goat in front of where his house once stood after it was damaged by recent landslides in Melamchi, northeast of Kathmandu, Nepal, on Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

A worker uses an excavator to clear land for a road that would connect to the upper villages of Melamchi, northeast of Kathmandu, Nepal, on Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

Laxmi Jyoti, 41, walks near where her home used to be in Chanaute, Melamchi, northeast from Kathmandu, Nepal, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, now covered with large rocks brought by floods in 2021. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

Suntali Jyoti, 56, sits where her house and field once stood, in Chanaute, Melamchi, northeast from Kathmandu, Nepal, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, now covered with large rocks brought by floods in 2021. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

Children play volleyball with a landslide-damaged hill visible in the background at Saraswati Secondary School in Gyalthum, Melamchi, northeast of Kathmandu, Nepal on Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

Sita Pandit, 50, walks in her house at Chanaute Market, Melamchi, northeast of Kathmandu, Nepal on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, that was damaged by floods in 2021. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

Kali Prasad Shrestha, 57, stands near Kathmandu, Nepal, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, on the spot where his house once stood before it was swept away by floods in 2021.(AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. flu infections showed signs of a slight decline last week, but health officials say it is not clear that this severe flu season has peaked.

New government data posted Friday — for flu activity through last week — showed declines in medical office visits due to flu-like illness and in the number of states reporting high flu activity.

However, some measures show this season is already surpassing the flu epidemic of last winter, one of the harshest in recent history. And experts believe there is more suffering ahead.

“This is going to be a long, hard flu season,” New York State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald said, in a statement Friday.

One type of flu virus, called A H3N2, historically has caused the most hospitalizations and deaths in older people. So far this season, that is the type most frequently reported. Even more concerning, more than 91% of the H3N2 infections analyzed were a new version — known as the subclade K variant — that differs from the strain in this year’s flu shots.

The last flu season saw the highest overall flu hospitalization rate since the H1N1 flu pandemic 15 years ago. And child flu deaths reached 289, the worst recorded for any U.S. flu season this century — including that H1N1 “swine flu” pandemic of 2009-2010.

So far this season, there have been at least 15 million flu illnesses and 180,000 hospitalizations, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates. It also estimates there have been 7,400 deaths, including the deaths of at least 17 children.

Last week, 44 states reported high flu activity, down slightly from the week before. However, flu deaths and hospitalizations rose.

Determining exactly how flu season is going can be particularly tricky around the holidays. Schools are closed, and many people are traveling. Some people may be less likely to see a doctor, deciding to just suffer at home. Others may be more likely to go.

Also, some seasons see a surge in cases, then a decline, and then a second surge.

For years, federal health officials joined doctors' groups in recommending that everyone 6 months and older get an annual influenza vaccine. The shots may not prevent all symptoms but can prevent many infections from becoming severe, experts say.

But federal health officials on Monday announced they will no longer recommend flu vaccinations for U.S. children, saying it is a decision parents and patients should make in consultation with their doctors.

“I can’t begin to express how concerned we are about the future health of the children in this country, who already have been unnecessarily dying from the flu — a vaccine preventable disease,” said Michele Slafkosky, executive director of an advocacy organization called Families Fighting Flu.

“Now, with added confusion for parents and health care providers about childhood vaccines, I fear that flu seasons to come could be even more deadly for our youngest and most vulnerable," she said in a statement.

Flu is just one of a group of viruses that tend to strike more often in the winter. Hospitalizations from COVID-19 and RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, also have been rising in recent weeks — though were not diagnosed nearly as often as flu infections, according to other federal data.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

FILE - Pharmacy manager Aylen Amestoy administers a patient with a seasonal flu vaccine at a CVS Pharmacy in Miami, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)