Every disaster also presents an opportunity to learn: Himanshu Thakkar

Two weeks after the August 26 floods in Nepal, the catastrophe only seems to be getting bigger in scale. The floodwaters crashed through Nepal’s Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Dhading, Gorkha, and Tanahun districts along the Nepal-Tibet border, obliterating homes, schools, roads, and bridges. More than 5,000 people are still missing, and the death toll in Nepal stands at 1,340. A glacial collapse on the Nepal side of the Himalaya is said to have caused the flash floods.Coming at a time when the effects of climate change are getting starker all over the world, the Nepal floods raise vital questions of preparedness which also apply to India. While both countries are particularly vulnerable to climate change, their disaster management systems are not even adequate. Given the reality, what does the future hold for the two neighbouring countries? Himanshu Thakkar—coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People, who has been actively engaged with issues related to water and hydropower projects in India for more than three decades—offers his insights in this email interview.Edited excerpts: “This incident has indicated that the risks we face in the Himalayan region are increasing with climate change,” said Nepal Prime Minister Balendra Shah. Can we just blame it all on climate change and ignore the role aggressive development poses in an ecologically fragile zone? Or is climate change indeed the chief villain? Climate change is a likely trigger for the flood disaster that has devastated Nepal and Tibet from the morning of August 26, but scientists say that this needs further study. What we can say for sure is that the scale of the floods is related to a number of more tangible factors. These include the callous way in which major ventures, including a large number of hydropower projects, have been taken up, ignoring the inherent vulnerabilities of the Himalayan region, accentuated by climate change; the lack of early warning systems (EWS); the absence of a functioning disaster management system, including emergency action plans. Land-use policies and practices informed by the vulnerabilities of the region are nowhere in place. This is evident from the way buildings along the paths of the rivers were washed away. The area has a history of disasters—there have been floods in this very region in September 2024 and July 2025. But one more big hydropower project, the Upper Trishuli-1 hydropower project, is coming up here. The Cumulative Impact Assessment (CIA) study done by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, which is one of the organisations funding the project in Nepal, does not properly evaluate the consequences of hydropower projects across the Trishuli River basin. The Upper Trishuli basin has more than 36 hydropower projects, but the CIA study does not even attempt to look upstream and assess impacts related to the Tibetan catchment. It does not discuss the threats of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOF) and makes no cumulative disaster plan for the basin. In December 2024, an independent panel of experts appointed by another funder, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), visited the site as part of their routine monitoring. They write in their report that “no climate resilience assessment was undertaken for the Project—this is a significant gap.” They recommended an assessment. Yet, in May 2025, the ADB panel found that the assessment “has yet to be done”. The panel had recommended that the project’s “early warning system” should be redesigned “as soon as possible”. By May 2025, not much had changed. “The slow implementation of a reliable early flood warning system… remains a major risk to those project communities in proximity to the river,” the report noted. The panel also found that muck from the project was being disposed of directly into the river—a practice that is known to worsen the impact of floods. A siren was supposed to go off if water suddenly rose near the tunnel on the Upper Trishuli-1 project, or if there were any other emergency. The siren did not work on the fateful day of August 26, showing criminal callousness. It has been found that an EWS installed 10 kilometres upstream at the Chilime hydropower project “proved to be useless” for the September 2024 floods. The Chilime project has been severely impacted by the recent floods and at least eight of its workers are missing. The ADB panel of independent experts had recommended strengthening the warning system and emergency plans, coordinating alerts with hydropower projects upstream and downstream, and putting evacuation protocols in place for dangerous floods. Practically none of this was done. The Export-Import Bank of China is supporting the 60-megawatt Upper Trishuli 3A hydropower project in Nepal. No impact assessment or other related reports by the bank are in the public domain. While the international banks’ own reports repeatedly highlight climate risks, they do not take any preventive steps or demand stringent checks and balances. More shockingly, the banks are funding the projects in the name of climate and disaster resilience. The banks’ failures are particularly serious because they are violating their own policies. In 2019, the Presidents of China and Nepal—Xi Jinping and Bidya Devi Bhandari—committed themselves to promoting cooperation in addressing climate change and protecting the environment, among other issues. The two countries still do not have even a rudimentary joint early warning plan in place for shared river basins. Throughout the Himalaya, shoddy or dishonest EIAs, lack of accountability in governance, and non-implementation of basic monitoring, forecasting, and implementable disaster management plans are worsening the effects of calamities in river valleys with multiple hydropower projects. By not doing independent post-disaster impact assessments, we have shut the door on learning any lessons for the future.

An aerial view shows Chilime hydropower station deluged in sludge in the aftermath of flash floods at Syabrubesi in Nepal's Rasuwa district on September 3, 2026. | Photo Credit: Prakash Mathema/AFP Taking for granted that development activities will not stop, or that climate change cannot be reversed, what precautions can be adopted for safety in geologically sensitive zones that are also affected by climate change? The need of the hour is not to stop development activities, but to select appropriate development options, keeping in mind the realities of the region. The first requirement is to recognise and accept the geological and other vulnerabilities of the Himalayan zone. Second, accept the added vulnerabilities stemming from climate change. This will now include the melting permafrost and threats of collapse of hanging glaciers, as well as landslides and avalanches. Third, there should be monitoring and EWSs. We need much better appraisals, including environmental, social impact and disaster vulnerability assessments (today most of these are only in name, if they are there at all), and democratic decision-making processes. The impact assessments will include credible options assessments. The disaster management plans should begin with the EWSs, but should not stop at that. There has to be a management system that shares plans based on the EWS data and accountability in governance. Every disaster also presents an opportunity to learn. One of the first steps in that direction would be an assessment by an independent panel after every disaster. We will also need basin-wise credible CIAs. For all these to work, we must have a governance system that recognises independent track records and also conflicts of interest. The guidelines of the World Commission on Dams can be crucial in decision-making processes for existing, under-construction, and planned hydropower projects. News reports say that there had been warning signs of the glacier collapse. What role does technology play when it comes to early warnings? The trigger for the floods seems to be the collapse of a hanging glacier, which fell from a height of about 1,200 metres. The kinetic energy from the fall melted the ice and began a flow in the nearby Lhende Khola, which then bloated the Bhote Koshi and the Trishuli. This kind of hanging glacier collapse is not easy to monitor, scientists have said. However, technology can help things. Identified vulnerable areas in remote locations have to be monitored with radar and satellites. The monitoring should provide actionable information, which can then be used to create disaster management systems. We have repeatedly seen that there is no system in place to use such information to reduce disaster proportions. This was the case in the Uttarakhand flash floods of June 2013, the Chamoli disaster of February 2021, and the Sikkim GLOF in October 2023, among others. An independent review of the current disaster is likely to reach similar conclusions. We have an inventory of hanging glaciers in the Alaknanda, Kali, Upper Yamuna, and Bhagirathi basins done by Indian universities. The researchers have prioritised hanging glaciers based on size and vulnerability. If automated surveillance and an EWS for the entire upper watershed is too expansive, then vulnerable sites should at least be identified. These sites should be monitored specifically, not only by satellite and radar but also through an in-situ system which sends alarms in real time to downstream communities, projects, and decision-makers. If warnings are heeded, can they lessen the impact of floods, at least in downstream areas? Yes, if a disaster management system is in place from a functioning EWS, whether formal or informal, deaths and damages in downstream areas can be significantly reduced. A good example of this was seen in Chamoli in February 2021. Although no formal EWS was in place, an informal early warning came from Mangshri Devi, who saw the approaching flood from her hut, situated at a height above the riverbed. She immediately called up her son, who was at work downstream at the Tapovan Vishnugad hydropower project, and asked him to rush upwards. When her son too saw the approaching flood, he ran, alerting other workers around him. By acting swiftly, Devi saved at least 25 lives, including that of her son. In the case of the Teesta GLOF in 2023, the Sikkim State Disaster Management Authority got information about the risk to the Chungthang population just past midnight on October 3, in the nick of time before the flood arrived. It quickly evacuated the population at risk. Further downstream, people around Teesta Bazar in West Bengal were also alerted and evacuated before the flood reached there. During monsoons, if downstream dams take advance action regarding the release of stored water on the basis of information from upstream catchments, the severity of downstream floods can be reduced. We have repeatedly seen this. We also have a large number of examples where such advance action has not been taken, leading to avoidable floods in downstream areas.

Accumulated sludge lines the Trishuli riverbank in the aftermath of flash floods at Trishuli Bazar in Nepal's Nuwakot district on September 5, 2026. | Photo Credit: Prakash Mathema/AFP What lessons do the Nepal floods hold for India? India needs to intensify the monitoring of priority vulnerable locations identified in a credible way, using satellites, radars, and periodic physical visits. Involving local communities is very important since they know their ecosystems, and are also most at risk. We should put in place a list of actions to be adopted by communities when a particular early warning is issued. The role of various key persons in such situations must be clearly defined. On transboundary river basins, we should have a monitoring and information-sharing protocol, as well as a joint research and action plan with neighbouring countries. We also urgently need a land-use policy for vulnerable locations and a review of existing structures in light of such a policy. We have none at present. As a result, more and more buildings are coming up in vulnerable locations. We need to do a thorough, independent review of all the dams and hydropower projects, and put the gathered information in the public domain. This should be periodically reviewed along with emergency action plans. In all this, we need to keep in mind the new threats of weakening permafrost, the possibility of collapse of hanging glaciers, landslides, erosion, GLOFs, seismic activities, and rising temperatures. There has been controversy over China’s delayed action during the Nepal floods. The fact that China is supporting the construction of a major hydropower project in this very vulnerable region, without any safety measures in place, is a cause for concern. Adding to the anxieties is the fact that China is in the process of building the world’s largest capacity hydropower project upstream of India on the Yarlung Tsangpo River (Brahmaputra in India and Bangladesh). All the risks observed in the Trishuli basin are magnified several times when it comes to the Yarlung Tsangpo basin. So, India needs to urgently and publicly demand basic information about the project from China, and put in place a mechanism based on joint impact assessment, information sharing, and monitoring. Also Read | The history and geography of grief in NepalAlso Read | India can see the danger in the Himalaya. Can it manage the risk?