Nepal Floods Sweep Away Homes, Bridges; 95 Rescued, Five Missing

Nepal floods flash floods

A major river in Nepal has flooded, sweeping away houses and bridges and damaging part of a hydropower station, authorities said. Officials have rescued 95 people, including nine foreigners, along the bank of the Budhi Gandaki River in central Gorkha district, the army confirmed. No casualties have been reported, but five people remain missing.

A video of the flooding shows raging water moving down a valley and washing away an entire building complex. The scale of the destruction has prompted a search-and-rescue operation as authorities assess damage in settlements affected by the sudden rise in the river.

Rescue teams deployed as settlements are cut off

More than 200 homes were damaged and more than 650 people were affected, according to Nepal’s Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority. Some settlements have been completely cut off and can now be reached only by air, a local official told The Kathmandu Post.

The Nepalese army said it had mobilised four helicopters for search and rescue operations. The response is taking place as families flee their homes and face uncertainty over access to safe shelter and essential supplies.

The flooding swept away about a dozen houses and several suspension bridges, while a hydroelectric project was damaged and some construction equipment was carried away, the disaster management authority said. The damage to bridges and the loss of road access have left some communities dependent on air access, according to the local official quoted by The Kathmandu Post.

Ganesh Karki, a resident of Jagatbagar, said he and others moved about 500m (0.3 miles) uphill to a nearby forest after receiving an early-morning warning call about the flood. “We never imagined a flood of this size,” he said. He added: “The water surged for about 15 minutes and then stopped repeatedly throughout the morning. We are afraid to return home at night.”

River level rose sharply

Officials said the river’s water level at one location rose from two metres (6ft 5in) to nearly 8.5m (27ft 9in) within a couple of hours. That rapid rise helps explain how homes, bridges and part of the hydropower project were overwhelmed, although the cause of the flood remains unclear.

Binod Parajuli, a meteorologist who works with the Nepalese government, said the flood had also destroyed the monitoring system at one location. “Our hydrological station was swept away and we are not getting any data from that location,” he said.

Experts said the debris flow was much smaller and moved more slowly than the devastating flash floods in August. However, the comparison has not removed uncertainty about what triggered the latest flooding.

Some accounts suggest that a landslide may have blocked the river or one of its tributaries for a period, allowing dammed water to burst out. Others said local people upstream saw an ice-avalanche. Authorities have not established which explanation caused the flood.

Gorkha communities already recovering

The flooding hit Gorkha as Nepal remained on high alert and continued recovering from catastrophic floods that struck its border towns with Tibet two months earlier. Those floods left more than 1,400 people dead and thousands missing.

Sunday’s flood also came as children and communities prepared to mark the first day of the Dashain festival, a major moment in the Nepali calendar. The timing has added to the disruption for families already dealing with damaged homes, lost bridges and uncertainty over where they can stay.

The Budhi Gandaki is a tributary of the Trishuli river. It lies downstream from another tributary where an avalanche of rock and ice caused floods along the Nepal-Tibet border in August. That avalanche occurred near the peak of Lantang Lirung, a mountain on Nepal’s side of the Himalayas, and hundreds of people were killed in those floods.

Save the Children is mobilising an emergency team to respond to Sunday’s flood. Tara Chettry, the charity’s director in Nepal, said: “Children’s lives have been ripped apart in an instant yet again.” She said the full scale of the damage was not yet known, but that children may have lost their homes, schools and communities.

“Many children in Gorkha will still be in shock and distress after the mega floods in August, barely having a chance to get back on their feet,” Chettry said. Her comments underline the continuing strain on communities affected by repeated flooding and other disasters.

Unpredictable Himalayan risks

Nepal is prone to earthquakes, landslides and floods because of the unpredictable natural environment in the Himalayas. Experts say climate change is causing glaciers to melt faster and is likely increasing the risk of such disasters.

The latest flooding has therefore raised immediate concerns over rescue access, shelter and essential supplies while officials continue to assess the damage and search for missing people. The cause remains unclear, and the loss of the hydrological station means officials are not receiving data from one affected location.