View from the Himalayas | Kathmandu’s record rainfall has cross-border implications
It was the same late-monsoon cloudburst that affected the first two days of the Kanpur Test between India and Bangladesh.
Those in high places decided to ignore it. But for most Nepalis, it came without warning. It was done in less than 72 hours. The unseasonal rain was followed by landslides, floods and roadblocks. On October 1, as the water receded, the government confirmed 224 deaths, more than 50 of them in Kathmandu. At least 24 are still unaccounted for.
Between September 26 to 28, Nepal’s capital received more than 350 millimetres of rain, one-fourth of what it gets in a whole year. The water level in the Bagmati River, at the heart of the valley, crossed two metres above the danger mark, sweeping away many unwary residents who lived close by and some of their houses, too. Similarly hostile were the Bagmati’s tributaries in the valley.
Other rivers outside Kathmandu were as dangerous. The Narayani was running at 2.5 metres above the danger level; the Sunkoshi recorded almost 3 metres higher than its danger threshold. The late monsoon cloudburst hit much of Nepal by surprise, with 44 of 77 districts categorised as “severely affected.” Thousands of households in the low-lying areas in central and eastern Nepal bore the brunt of the floods.
Almost a week later, most of those struggling with the floods are trying to rebuild their lives — as others are trying to make sense of it all - after a torrent of slush accumulated at their doorstep and inside their homes, their first such experience. Floods and landslides have severely impacted the road networks, with significant damage to the highways and bridges. Twenty-two hydroelectric plants and nine transmission lines have been disrupted.
When the most important – and the longest - festival season started on Thursday, October 3, tens of thousands of families found themselves wondering if they would be able to leave their homes at all. The 15-day Dashain is followed by Tihar (Diwali in India) and then Chhath. In the next four weeks, tens of thousands of Nepalis will travel across the country. Among those who will be affected are Nepalis based in India, who will cross over to Nepal through the numerous border points spread across the 1,751-kilometre international border.
Government insensitivity
Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli, who was on a 10-day visit to the United States, was at the receiving end of public wrath for not cutting short his tour at a time of national crisis. The caretaker head of the government Prakashman Singh wasn’t even able to convene an emergency cabinet. The deputy prime minister Bishnu Poudel was on a week-long tour of China. The police chief was in Greece. The inter-agency coordination between government departments and ministries was sorely lacking despite repeated warnings by climate scientists that Nepal would see an unprecedented scale of rainfall in late September.
What made the Nepali public even angrier was Oli’s claim, upon his return, that his government had done the best it could to fight the crisis (One of his most cited remarks: “I didn’t go to [the United States] to milk buffalo.”) Home minister Ramesh Lekhak was roundly criticised for insisting that the people crying out for help for hours could not be reached “due to poor visibility.” In all, as much as the government inefficiency it was the political insensitivity of the prime minister and those in high office that the Nepalis found appalling.
Larger picture
Experts say the floods were caused by the heaviest rainfall in Kathmandu since at least 1970, with the impact further increased by poor settlement planning. Most of the areas inundated in Kathmandu valley are in low-lying belts close to rivers. The floods also extended beyond Nepal to parts of Uttar Pradesh, Assam, and Bangladesh. (This by the way was the same late-monsoon cloudburst that affected the first two days of the Kanpur Test between India and Bangladesh).
Clearly, climate change has played a significant role in exacerbating the disaster, compounded by poor urban planning and infrastructure. In Bangladesh, vast areas of land in its northern districts were submerged due to the sudden rise in water level in the Teesta River, which crossed its danger mark at several points, Reuters reported. In the South Asian subregion — Nepal, Bangladesh, eastern Bihar, Assam and the lowlands along the Himalayan foothills — the rising waters have devastated large areas of farmland, washing away crops such as paddy and vegetables, fish farms, leaving many farmers facing severe losses.
This unprecedented rain has fallen on soil already saturated following a more than 25% above-normal rainfall this monsoon in Kathmandu. Its impact is aggravated by poor drainage due to haphazard urbanisation, construction on floodplains, lack of areas for water retention, and encroachment on the Bagmati river, according to the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICOMOD), a Kathmandu-based intergovernmental organisation that works in eight countries in the Hindu-Kush region, including Nepal, India, China, Bhutan and Bangladesh. In recent years, the region’s monsoon has lasted longer.
Nepal is among the most vulnerable countries to the climate crisis, and the Hindu-Kush region has recorded multiple extreme weather events in recent years. Extreme weather events — excess rain in a short period, continuous rains for several days after the monsoon, dry spells, droughts, below-average precipitation, and above-normal winter temperatures — have become more frequent in Nepal, The Kathmandu Post reported.
Extreme floods resulting from two consecutive heavy monsoons have caused devastation in many parts of the Hindu Kush Himalaya region in 2023 and 2024, and a recent analysis by climate scientists shows Asia’s exposure to extreme rain and flood risk will grow by 2030, according to ICIMOD. It also warns that the Asian continent will face the greatest rainfall changes in the world by 2100, with Bangladesh, China, and India among the 10 Asian countries that have the highest risk of extreme rainfall by the end of the century.
With better preparedness and response, Nepal could have lessened the damages caused by the record rainfall. But it surely has very little control over the increasing frequency of erratic weather patterns and the climate crisis at hand. The major contributors to the climate calamities are large economies beyond Nepal's borders.
Akhilesh Upadhyay is a Senior Fellow at IIDS, a Kathmandu-based think tank. He is theformer Editor-in-Chief of The Kathmandu Post. Views expressed are personal.
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