A warning in the waters

Mira Sewa, 49, was waiting outside Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital, Kathmandu, with hundreds of families for news about relatives who went missing in Nepal’s devastating flood in August. At the hospital, she pinned her son Yubaraj Sewa’s photograph to a growing “wall of the missing”, now covered with thousands of images of those unaccounted for since the Bhote Koshi-Trishuli disaster.She visited every hospital in Kathmandu, searching for her son. She thought he lay unconscious in one of those wards, receiving treatment. She checked out every hospital bed where patients were admitted, but he was nowhere to be found. She went to every river where bodies surfaced, but he was not there either. His name does not appear on any list of the rescued, the injured, or the dead. “I just hope he returns,” she said. Tears streamed down her face as she spoke. Her brother-in-law was also missing. Yubaraj used to drive a vehicle that carried goods and people between China and Rasuwa. On September 3, Yubaraj turned 24. On the day of the flood, he spoke to Mira from a hotel in Timure at 8:14 am and told her he would be back home on his birthday.Also Read | The history and geography of grief in Nepal“The government says they’re trying,” Mira said. “All I want is my son back—nothing else. I’ve been waiting for him every single day.”“When we visited shaman, he told us Yubaraj had been unconscious and had a deep wound on his right leg. He told us that he [Yubaraj] also has a small cut on his chest, but he is still alive,” Mira said. “We are praying for his survival.”‘Sediment bomb’Arun Bhakta Shrestha, a climate and Himalayan glacier specialist, said the disaster began when a huge section of a glacier and adjacent rock collapsed at elevations between roughly 1,200 and 5,200 metres above the Lhande Khola river in Tibet, just across the border. The falling ice and rock mixed with water to form a fast-moving slurry, unleashing a powerful surge into the Lhande. That torrent quickly raced downstream as a destructive flood along the Bhote Koshi River, causing widespread damage.Downstream, the floodwaters surged into the Trishuli River, causing its level to jump by as much as 9 metres (30 feet) in under 30 minutes. The flood then merged into the Narayani river system before flowing into India via the Gandak river.

Residents commute across the Trishuli river on a newly installed zipline in the aftermath of the flood at Devighat in Nepal’s Nuwakot district on September 7. | Photo Credit: NIRANJAN SHRESTHA/AP According to the latest figures from Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA), 1,287 people died in the flood; 5,083 people were missing; 5,397 people were injured. Among the dead were Nepali Hindu pilgrims who were travelling to the Kailash Mansarovar site in Tibet, as well as 590 tourists from at least 39 countries.Bodies of people swept away by the flood in Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Dhading, Chitwan, Gorkha, Tanahun, Nawalparasi East, and Nawalparasi West districts have been recovered.Initial assessments by the NDRRMA show that the flood damaged 7,570 private homes and destroyed 35 of 48 government buildings; 18 schools and 7 health facilities were also damaged. The worst-affected districts are Rasuwa and Nuwakot, which bore the brunt of the disaster, with significant additional damage reported in DhadingEarly estimates put the total economic losses at NPR 387.54 billion. However, around 20,000 ultimately need to be rebuilt. There are many more houses that are either uninhabitable or located in high‑risk zones.UNDP data indicate that 84,270 people in 17 municipalities across 6 districts have been affected. The majority of these municipalities are rural and situated in Nepal’s hill regions where agriculture supports the livelihoods of 67.4 per cent of the population.Shubha Raj Neupane, spokesperson for Nepal’s Department of Roads, said early assessments put flood damage to roads and bridges at more than NPR 30 billion (about Rs.18.75 billion). Around 80 km of road stretch was completely washed away and another 55-km stretch severely damaged. In addition, 42 concrete bridges sustained damage and 68 suspension bridges were swept away. “We are currently working to clear the routes,” he said.The flood devastated hydropower infrastructure across the region, according to Mohan Kumar Dangi, president of the Independent Power Producers’ Association, Nepal (IPPAN). The Rasuwagadhi and Chilime hydropower projects were destroyed and at least 13 other projects under construction in Rasuwa and Nuwakot districts suffered significant damage. The disaster has affected 431 megawatts of generation capacity—roughly 10 per cent of Nepal’s total hydropower output.“In all of Nepal’s modern history, we’ve never seen a disaster this deadly,” said Dr Rijan Bhakta Kayastha, a geologist and glaciologist at Kathmandu University. “The scale of destruction is unlike anything we’ve experienced before—this was no ordinary flood. It was triggered by the collapse of a glacier.”“Too often, we look only at how much water is flowing,” said Dr Basantraj Adhikari, director of the Centre for Disaster Studies at Tribhuvan University’s Institute of Engineering. “But when floods carry heavy debris, their destructive power increases dramatically. As the surge moves downstream, it erodes riverbanks and gains even more momentum.” He said that the recent flood was a “sediment bomb”.Accelerated rate of glacier lossAccording to an International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) report of March 19, 2026, research and over 50 years of monitoring reveal that 89 per cent of recorded years experienced a negative glacier mass balance. Crucially, the rate of glacier ice loss doubled after 2000.

A damaged building in a landscape from which the flood has sucked out all the colour, at Trishuli in Nepal’s Nuwakot district on September 7. | Photo Credit: PEDRO PARDO/AFP Between 1990 and 2020, Hindu Kush Himalaya glaciers lost roughly 12 per cent of their total area and 9 per cent of their estimated ice volume, amounting to a cumulative loss of up to 27 metres of ice thickness since 1975.  A review (in SSRN) of 493 glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) recorded up to 2024 shows that the risk is growing as the climate warms. In the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region, the number of GLOF events has jumped fivefold since 1950, from an average of 7 per decade to 38. The study also flags about 407 glacial lakes in the region as potentially dangerous and at risk of bursting.On the morning of August 26, Kamal Thapa, 38, was driving his autorickshaw through Betrawati, 42 kilometres south of Rasuwagadhi, taking passengers to their destinations. It was 8:20 am when he heard police loudspeakers warning that a flood was on its way. He braced himself, fearing it would be worse than last year’s. Then the ground beneath him began to shake. For a moment, he thought an earthquake had struck.He was leaning out of the autorickshaw when, in less than 10 seconds, the flood surged in. The water swept him away along with the vehicle and two others inside. Carried about 500 metres downstream, he struggled to stay afloat, diving repeatedly and trying to climb onto anything solid, but the muddy, churning water kept pulling him under. Finally, the current pushed him towards the riverbank, where he managed to grab hold of something.He is now receiving treatment at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital. “I survived by luck,” he said. “I don’t know how. It felt like the flood was sweeping me away—like it was my last day.”He added that his village, Betrawati, was destroyed. “I can’t reach any of my friends. Since the disaster, I haven’t heard from a single one of them.”Global warmingThe glaciologist Mohan Bahadur Chand said that rising temperatures were melting the upper glacial surface, allowing water to seep into the ice. As the water moves downward, it widens existing fractures and creates new ones, known as crevasses.“Many crevasses are now forming, and the more water that enters them, the wider and deeper they become,” Chand said. “When meltwater flows through the glacier and reaches the underlying rock, it can destabilise large blocks of ice and cause them to collapse. That is exactly what is happening now. The rising temperature is accelerating the widening of these cracks.”He added: “As the climate warms, glaciers are pulling back towards higher elevations, stripping away the snow that once cushioned the slopes. What remains is a fragile landscape—bare earth and dangling masses of rock and ice teetering on mountain walls. It will fall one day or another. We will see more such processes in the coming days.”

Flood aftermath. In Betrawati of Nepal's Nuwakot district on September 6. | Photo Credit: ADNAN ABIDI/REUTERS Such floods are not new in Nepal. A similar disaster in 2015 is believed to have killed around 300 people. More recently, on July 8, 2025, a sudden outburst from a large glacial lake in Tibet sent a surge of water down the Lhande Khola river, sweeping away the Maitri Bridge at Rasuwagadhi and killing at least 9 people. Just 3 weeks later, on July 30, the Bhote Koshi flooded again, damaging roads and other infrastructure along the same corridor, said Binod Parajuli, a senior divisional hydrologist in Nepal’s Flood Forecasting Division.Parajuli added: “The early warning system was delayed because we couldn’t identify the flood in time. Our system only sends alerts when it detects rain, but this flood didn’t begin with the kind of rainfall we usually track. That made it hard to issue a timely warning. We simply had no system in place to monitor this type of flooding.”Nepal’s own carbon and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are extremely low—accounting for only about 0.1 per cent of the global total.The climate expert Batu Krishna Upreti said the Nepal flood was part of a wider pattern of extreme weather events seen around the world this year. “Our Himalaya is melting, and we are being forced to bear the consequences—even though our contribution to that melting is zero,” he said. “Our people are bearing the consequences, often without realising that these disasters are not caused by their own actions.” Upreti warned that the dangers were piling up because hydropower projects were being built/planned in unstable riverbeds and flood-prone valleys.IPPAN president Dangi said: “Simply saying ‘don’t build hydropower’ doesn’t get us anywhere. It’s also not helpful to argue that because developed countries are melting our mountains with their carbon emissions, we should stop building hydropower. The truth is, we will have to face disasters and protect our environment at the same time. We can’t ask others to protect the environment while we keep emitting carbon ourselves. Instead, we need to use the resources we have responsibly.”He added: “We must make use of the resources our country has. That doesn’t mean returning to a wild, unplanned era—it means carrying out proper risk assessments and analysing the catchment area before any project. We need stricter regulations to avoid building structures too close to rivers and to incorporate safety factors into our designs.”Also Read | India can see the danger in the Himalaya. Can it manage the risk?Dr Ramesh Paudel, associate professor, Department of Economics, Tribhuvan University, said that the flood wiped out roughly 10 per cent of Nepal’s GDP. “Even if we factor in expected growth, the net effect will still push the GDP into negative territory. In some countries, disasters eventually lead to an economic boost because international donors pour in funds—but that only happens with strong management, hard work, and the ability to mobilise and channel financial aid effectively.” He added: “Next year, we might see GDP growth rebound, but this year will be tough.”He also said that people living in high-risk areas had few options. Given Nepal’s geography, valley communities face floods, while hillside settlements are vulnerable to landslides. Basantaraj Adhikari said: “The safest long-term solution is to resettle these communities after carefully analysing the local terrain. If relocation isn’t possible, the damage will only grow worse in the years ahead. For now, those in the most dangerous zones should be evacuated.”He said that although such floods could not always be prevented, their impact could be reduced. He recommended setting up monitoring stations to track where floods originate and how they develop, while strengthening the capacity to interpret satellite imagery. National Disaster Risk Reduction executive director Drama Raj Upreti said China and Nepal should establish a formal and binding mechanism for regular data-sharing, rather than exchanging information only during disasters. Sunita Neupane is an independent investigative journalist based in Kathmandu. She writes about human rights, social justice, public health, and environmental issues in Nepal—focussing on stories from underrepresented and marginalised communities.