The flash floods in Nepal have claimed at least 987 lives. At the time of writing, that’s the official count shared by Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority; 3,916 others still counted as missing, including 583 foreign nationals. According to Reuters, China has reported 16 deaths and 546 people missing in its part of the affected region. Nepal’s reconstruction bill is now estimated at roughly one-tenth of the national economy’s size.
My phone rang early on the morning of the third day of floods, giving me the news that my cousin’s niece in Nuwakot, who was working at her office when the waters gushed down, had been swept away. A little later, a worker in Kathmandu told me that he feared his family had been swept away too as they could not be contacted. Six journalists have been reported missing and about 20 have had their families and property affected, according to Press Council Nepal. I am dreading that as more such news comes in, the memory of these floods will become even more unbearable.
September 2026 marks a year since Nepal’s Gen Z revolution, which brought about an avalanche of political changes that led to elections six months later. A youth-led government with almost two-thirds majority came to power with pledges to move the country towards development. However, this crisis reveals the hurdles the government faces on many of those fronts.
These floods have become the Balendra Shah-led government’s biggest challenge by far. Taking account of the loss of lives, homes, agricultural land, development infrastructure and, above all, the mental and physical health of those directly affected has now become the main focus of the Cabinet of ministers.
Over a dozen hydropower projects have been affected, too, trapping more than 600 workers. According to the Independent Power Producers’ Association of Nepal, workers are reported to be trapped at the Chilime, Rasuwagadhi, Trishuli 3A, Trishuli 3B, Upper Trishuli-1 and Langtang projects. So far, 279 such workers have been rescued from hydropower tunnels. The Nepal Electricity Authority’s preliminary estimate of the sector’s loss stands at a staggering NRs 600 billion (about `37,500 crore).
It should be noted that as soon as the tragedy’s scale became apparent, the government clicked into gear. Balendra Shah and his Cabinet requested everyone, including the opposition parties and private companies, to be involved in addressing the emergency. The government quickly mobilised army and private helicopters for the rescue operations.
Nepal has also taken support from India and China. The effort is also being supported by experts from South Korea and Australia, among other nations.
According to global aid organisation Direct Relief, so far about 11,000 people have been rescued from the flood-affected areas, with the districts of Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Dhading, Gorkha, Tanahun, Nawalparasi and Chitwan most severely affected.
More than 22,000 security personnel have been mobilised for search and rescue. A total of 927 bodies have been sealed, with 51 handed over to family members after identification. Some 2,970 displaced people have been accommodated in temporary shelters. Alternative routes are being operated to get people and goods in and out of the Kathmandu valley.
Amid all this, another crisis is also being addressed. The misinformation and disinformation that’s being circulated on digital platforms are adding to the anxiety. Inappropriate images and videos of dead bodies are also being shared. Nepal’s ministry of information and communication is trying to ensure that more factual news is disseminated.
Umesh Shrestha, chairperson of Press Council Nepal, has also put out an urgent appeal: “Someone’s suffering is not content. A mutilated body is not something to make viral. Let us not measure the pain of people in distress in terms of views, likes and shares… We should not even have to look for specific provisions in a code of conduct to understand this. Nor should we need to be reminded of what the law says. Before rules and laws, there must be one fundamental principle: minimum human dignity.”
The flow of inappropriate information can come in the way of time-sensitive rescue operations. So the Press Council, an independent regulatory body, has started monitoring what’s put out. Under Shrestha, the newly-appointed chair of the council who is also an established fact-checker, a portal has been set up to collect complaints about inappropriate information. The council says that, surprisingly, this has been welcomed. So far, more than 130 complaints have been registered, and many have removed or corrected their posts after receiving calls from the council’s monitoring team.
As the shape and scale of the tragedy becomes clearer, it’s certain that there are several reasons for the Bhotekoshi disaster. The hand of global warming has been established through scientific evidence of melting ice and loosening rocks in the Himalayas. However, this is not the only cause. The affected area is in a fragile ecological and geographical region where it is particularly important to install and effectively use early warning systems. The country also needs to question the planning of hydel projects and roads in such areas.
It’s essential to note that Nepal is not among high-carbon-emitting countries. It is, therefore, equally important to raise questions with industrialised countries about the terrible human cost of their actions, even if it’s incurred far from their own territories. After all, it’s a tragedy for the whole planet.
Namrata Sharma | Senior journalist based in Nepal
(Views are personal)
(On X @NamrataSharmaP)