When the skies open over Kathmandu residents do not marvel at the rains. They brace. Children are kept home from school. Shopkeepers stack sandbags by their doors. In the lowlands of the Terai farmers scan the swollen rivers and hope their crops survive. What was once a seasonal unwelcome guest has become a permanent, hell-raising resident.
In late September last year an unusually intense monsoon deluge—amplified by climate change—unleashed carnage from the Kathmandu Valley to the banks of the Saptakoshi river. Bagmati province was hardest hit. Floodwaters turned towns into lakes and livelihoods into rubble. The human cost was brutal: 249 dead, 177 injured, over 10,800 families displaced. Nearly 6,000 homes were destroyed outright; another 13,000 suffered partial damage. Vulnerable populations, predictably, bore the brunt.
Economically, the floods exacted a steep toll: NPR 46.7 billion ($370m), or 0.8% of GDP. Infrastructure losses dominated at NPR 39 billion, with roads accounting for the bulk—NPR 28 billion—a telling reminder of the country’s fragile lifelines. Hydropower, telecommunications, sanitation and bridges added to the tally. Agriculture, the backbone of the economy, took a NPR 7.2 billion hit as farmlands flooded and livestock perished. Schools and health centres, pillars of social stability, faced nearly NPR 92 million in damages, disrupting vital services.
The floods are no longer freak acts of nature but grim forecasts: climate change colliding with urban sprawl and poor planning. Nepal is drowning: both in water and in systemic failure.
It is hydrologically rich but institutionally poor. Its fast-flowing rivers and steep slopes are natural reservoirs of immense water power. Around 80% of annual rainfall arrives in a furious four-to-five-week monsoon spasm, once feeding terraced fields and ponds, now inundating cities and washing away roads before flowing downstream to India.
In theory Nepal’s ancient civilisation offers lessons. The Newars, Kathmandu’s historic inhabitants, engineered elegant stone spouts and canals to channel water with precision. Today those skills lie forgotten beneath malls, parking lots and illegal constructions on floodplains. Wetlands have been paved over, natural ponds obliterated. Kathmandu’s rainwater has nowhere to go but into streets and living rooms. Gwarko, Baneshwor and Kalimati flood with alarming regularity even during moderate showers.
The World Bank estimates less than 5% of Kathmandu’s rainwater is managed by engineered drainage systems. The rest pools and floods. “Smart city” initiatives have a certain irony when residents wade through knee-deep water on their way home.
Floods spare no one, but they punish the poor first and worst. Thousands dwell in informal settlements perched dangerously on riverbanks along the Bagmati and Bishnumati. Many are internal migrants drawn by the city’s promise, only to find themselves rebuilding their tin-roofed shacks year after year. Early warning systems are blunt and patchy: SMS alerts reach only a fraction; sirens are rare; shelters theoretical. For many evacuation is a choice between exposure and losing shelter. Unsurprisingly, most stay put.
Outside the capital, the Terai plains tell a parallel tale of ruin. Rivers such as the Koshi and Rapti shift course frequently, swallowing farmland, homes, schools and roads. Children drown on their way to school; livelihoods vanish without compensation. Nepal imports much of its food; estimates suggest climate-driven floods could trim agricultural output by up to 20% within two decades. The threat of a nutritional crisis looms large.
The future promises more water. Himalayan glaciers are melting at twice their previous pace. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns of increasingly intense cloudbursts and the growing menace of glacier lake outburst floods (GLOFs), sudden surges that could devastate downstream communities.
The country faces a hydrological arms race it is ill-equipped to fight. Real-time flood forecasting is absent from most basins; evacuation plans are patchwork; local governments lack resources and authority. Federal officials acknowledge climate change and then stop there. Disaster funds arrive too late; around 12–15% of the preparedness budget go unspent. Master plans gather dust as political incentives favour construction over protection. No politician wants to be the mayor who evicts the poor, even if the river will do it with far less mercy.
Nepal’s knowledge base is not the problem. Its will is. Donors bankroll early-warning pilots, surveys and scattered infrastructure projects: yet these remain fragmented and temporary. Disaster management remains centralised despite federalism; municipalities await Kathmandu’s nod while floodwaters rise.
The state needs a programme of action, not reports. River setback zones must be enforced; drainage systems retrofitted; vulnerable populations mapped; annual flood drills institutionalised. Schools should teach monsoon preparedness; public buildings doubled as emergency shelters. Radio alerts must reach Maithili, Bhojpuri, Tamang and Tharu speakers, not just Nepalis.
A national digital flood-risk platform could harness satellite imagery and AI to provide real-time forecasts and evacuation guidance. Rooftop rainwater harvesting and permeable pavements should become mandatory. Most crucially, the country must begin relocating vulnerable communities with compensation and dignity, before this year’s monsoon drowns them out.
The costs of such reform will be high. But the price of inaction—economic, ecological and human—will be far higher.
A wet reckoning
Nepal’s crisis is hardly unique. From Dhaka to Jakarta, cities grapple with too much water and too little room. Yet Nepal’s trouble is peculiarly Himalayan: water falling too fast with nowhere to go.
This is no mere climate story. It is a governance story. And like all good disasters, it is as much man-made as meteorological. Each year the rains will return. Whether the country sinks or swims depends on choices made now—before the next downpour becomes another obituary. ■