Melamchi

Melamchi is a municipality in Sindhupalchok District, in the Bagmati Province of central Nepal. It takes its name from the Melamchi valley and watershed. At the 2011 census the municipality counted roughly 45,000 residents living in 11 wards. Hindu culture dominates the settlements on the valley floor, Buddhist culture is stronger in the high mountain settlements, and the mid-hill villages are where the two meet; the Melamchi watershed holds more than eleven Hindu temples and shrines and about fourteen monasteries. The lower valley has a sub-tropical climate and the upper valley a cool temperate one, with heavy monsoon rain from June to August and an annual average near 2,800 millimetres. The municipality has dozens of primary schools and a handful of secondary schools, and the village was affected by the earthquake of 25 April 2015.