Madhukar Upadhyay is a veteran hydrologist, a scholar of climate change. Few know the rebellious waters of Nepal better than he does, both in their underground currents and surface flows, as well as the mountains that feed them. He responds from Kathmandu, still under the impact of last Wednesday’s flood, which has left at least 669 dead and about three thousand missing.
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– A sudden flood.
– Totally unexpected. When I saw the images that same morning, I immediately realized it was something unprecedented, due to its speed and flow. Unimaginable even in a valley accustomed to floods.
– Does it match the explanation of a glacier collapse?
– Yes, on a slope that is in Nepal, but which was not considered a threat in itself. It is clear that it was not a glacial lake, as other times, but a glacier that broke off entirely and dragged rocks and sediments along for kilometers.
– With an initial impact that was mistaken for an earthquake.
– Of 5.2 degrees! It could have been the glacier, but there is something we still do not understand to explain the origin of so much water.
– Unprecedented, you say.
– Unprecedented in Nepal of this magnitude, although near Pojara there was already a warning in 2012, when an avalanche in Annapurna caused a flood [with 72 dead]. And in the Kedarnath temple disaster in India, a year later.
– 700 dead and 4,000 missing.
– Yes, there are indications that a large snow avalanche was the last straw that overflowed a glacial lake already full from the rains. In the same state of Uttarakhand, in Chamoli, in 2021, another avalanche turned into a deadly flood.
– What to do?
– The focus must be placed higher than the glacial lakes, directly on the glaciers. Because it is proven that their collapse or that of adjacent sediments, at high altitude, can turn a watershed upside down.
– Climate chaos.
– Although it may not seem so, Nepal is a country with water stress outside the rainy season. People are coming down from the mountains due to lack of water. And in the Terai plains, the country’s granary, there are droughts. Nepal has lost 50% of its springs. In the high mountains, 88% of the springs. There is a lack of moisture at high altitudes, so the forest line starts at increasingly lower elevations.
– Trees stabilize the land.
– And then there is the permafrost, the frozen ground that holds back glaciers and binds the mass of rocks, sediments, ice, and mud beneath its surface. When the glacier retreats, the permafrost thaws and can roll downhill, as it seems to have happened.
– Why now?
– In the monsoon season, which now ends in Nepal, relatively high temperatures and intense rains coincide.
– A fatal combination.
– Glaciers are melting, and that is why there are more and larger glacial lakes. But this year in particular, the monsoon was scarce and arrived many days late. Part of the problem is actually in the winter, because there are fewer and fewer days with below-zero temperatures in the mountains, where it snows less and less.
– Global warming.
– Actually, several phenomena are happening at the same time. We have been saying for years that this year is the hottest in history and that the worst is yet to come. Well, here the worst has already arrived.
– Alert.
– From Kathmandu, headquarters of ICIMOD [International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development], the situation in the Himalayan basins, which extend to eight states, is monitored. But it is not a matter for the Nepalese government alone and there are not many Nepalese involved. Monitoring glaciers is expensive.
– Nepal always demands, but does not seem to put much effort into enforcing its own urban planning rules.
– I wish there were rules.
– How does the hydroelectric fever influence?
– The private sector has invested a lot of money and is already ahead of the public sector in energy generation. There are more projects underway, but what happened this week, with several damaged plants, once again, can obviously be a deterrent.
– India said it would not buy energy from Nepalese dams built by China.
– Yes, it said so. And the problem is that there is still no transmission infrastructure to sell to China. Only to India and, for a year now, a little to Bangladesh, through India.
– There were projects, but after the political upheaval on the street and the election of a new government, it is reviewing them one by one.
– The truth is that young people had many reasons to rebel, but they ruined everything.
– Kathmandu is like a swing with two employers. When tourism rises, NGOs fall. Then a disaster comes and the roles change.
– Yes, but now many NGOs are on the ground, after Donald Trump dissolved USAID. The British have also made cuts.
– The new prime minister [the former rapper mayor of Kathmandu, Balendra Shah, graduated in Civil Engineering] has a tough task.
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– He should be given a grace period, he has only been in office for five months.
