Nepal’s devastating flood exposes the risks of resettling disaster survivors
About 257 households were moved there after the 2015 earthquake, and residents say the flood exposed unsafe resettlement and weak access to services.
- On August 26, flash floods surged through Khalte, a temporary settlement in Nepal's Rasuwa district, leaving residents with few escape routes. The area housed about 257 vulnerable households relocated after the 2015 earthquake destroyed their original villages.
- Geological assessments had previously classified Khalte as a "red zone" due to landslide and avalanche risks. Resident Bam Bahadur Tamang stated many opposed the government-forced relocation but were eventually forced to move there anyway.
- Survivor Norchi Ghale endured both the 2015 earthquake and the August floods, losing his mother and wife in the disaster. Returning to his former farmland, he found the landscape so devastated he could no longer recognize where anything had once stood.
- Dharam Raj Uprety, chief executive of Nepal's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, announced plans to build a new city with industries, hospitals and schools. The government aims to prevent displaced residents from returning to flood-destroyed settlements.
- Scientists warn that rising temperatures and increasingly unstable mountain landscapes make stronger early-warning systems and better coordination essential for Nepal. Officials are considering involving private developers in reconstruction to ensure safer, permanent housing for displaced families.
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Independent EspañolWhen the flood came, Chheku Lama ran uphill and shouted for people to flee. “A group listened to him, but no one survived,” he said. “His village, Khalte, in the Rasuwa district of Nepal, had established itself as a temporary settlement after an earthquake destroyed nearby villages in 2015. But it offered little protection from flooding, with houses grouped along the Trishuli River in a narrow valley.
Nepal's devastating flood exposes the risks of resettling disaste
This combination of six posed photographs shows, clockwise from top left, Birbal Tamang, Nima Choying Tamang, Kancha Ghale, Norchi Ghale, Buddha Tamang, and Chheku Lama, all survivors of Nepal's 2015 earthquake and the flash floods in August this year, in Nepal's Nuwakot district, Sept. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)
Associated Press News
Nepal’s devastating flood exposes the risks of resettling disaster survivors
Chheku Lama ran uphill, urging people to flee when floodwaters hit his village, Khalte, in Nepal's Rasuwa district. None survived.
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