Nepal floods expose gaps in warning, data sharing in China

Victims of Nepal’s catastrophic floods were given barely a few minutes’ warning before the water rushed through, highlighting gaps in high-altitude weather monitoring and data sharing with neighboring China.

“People didn’t even get five minutes of preparation time,” Dharam Raj Uprety, executive director of Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, told Bloomberg News in an interview. “We don’t have weather stations in high mountain areas” due to “lack of cross-border data transfer mechanisms” or limited sharing of weather and climate data across national borders.

That’s one of our “biggest challenges,” he said.

Quick answers to key questions

•5 QUESTIONS

Recent flooding in Nepal was primarily caused by a glacial collapse near the China-Nepal border that sent flows of ice, mud and debris downstream through the Bhotekoshi River system.

Nepal’s lack of effective flood early warning systems stems from poor weather monitoring in the highlands and insufficient cross-border data sharing with China, which limits the authorities’ ability to anticipate rapid changes.

According to the latest reports, over 3,000 people, including a significant number of hydropower workers and foreign nationals, are missing as a result of the devastating floods in Nepal.

Efforts to improve disaster management in Nepal include developing a plan for better early warning systems with a focus on cross-border data sharing and establishing more weather monitoring stations in high-altitude areas.

Yes, neighboring countries should work together to share weather data to improve forecasting and preparedness, which is critical to mitigating the risks of disasters such as the catastrophic floods in Nepal.

Last week’s devastating floods, which killed at least 800 people and left more than 3,000 missing, exposed a dangerous blind spot in the Himalayas, Upreti said, as warming destabilizes glaciers and mountain slopes faster than authorities can build systems to monitor them.

Better forecasts and earlier warnings will not only help save lives, but also go some way to protecting critical infrastructure and limiting disruption to tourism, a vital source of jobs and foreign exchange for the Himalayan economy.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for faster exploration of glaciers and glacial lakes on the Tibetan Plateau to prevent further disasters, according to the official Xinhua news agency. The Communist Party also ordered stronger monitoring and early warning systems on Friday to improve authorities’ ability to identify related disaster risks.

In a statement on X, the Chinese Embassy in Nepal that China has “always made every effort, within the limits of existing technology, to conduct monitoring, assessment and analysis and share important information with the Nepalese side in a timely manner.”

The two countries maintain “close communication on cross-border disaster management,” he added, without specifying whether China had warned Nepal about the Aug. 26 disaster.

Nepal’s disaster was set off by a glacial collapse on Wednesday that sent ice, mud, rocks and fast-moving water soaring through a valley in Nepal, destroying entire settlements in its path. Videos showed people trying to flee as walls of water and debris engulfed buildings, took down bridges and power lines and washed away trees, boulders and vehicles.

According to Binod Chaudhary, Nepal’s only billionaire and chairman of the Chaudhary Group conglomerate, the damage could reach at least $5 billion, and reconstruction is likely to be similar to the seven- to eight-year reconstruction process that followed the 2015 Nepal earthquake.

While Nepal has monitoring infrastructure further downstream, Uprety said large stretches of high mountains remain poorly observed.

Weather stations at extreme altitudes are expensive and difficult to install and maintain, Upety said, so authorities have limited ability to detect rapidly changing temperatures, permafrost conditions or emerging ice hazards.

Satellite analysis shows that the bedrock beneath the glacier has collapsed, triggering a cascading disaster. Scientists caution that it is too soon to attribute a specific collapse directly to climate change, although warming may weaken the permafrost that helps bind alpine slopes together.

Improving early warning systems is now a priority, Uprety said. His team at the NDRRMA — the main body that coordinates Nepal’s disaster response — has drafted a plan that should be approved soon, focusing on giving communities more time to prepare for disasters, he said.

“If we don’t stop creating boundaries for climate information,” he said, disasters coming from remote mountain areas will be hard to predict.

With help from Akriti Sharma.

This article was generated from an automated news agency source without text modification.