Our disaster in the Himalayas

Last Wednesday’s Himalayan landslide ended up tearing a 100km (60mi)-long trail of devastation through the Nepal-Tibet border, with more than a thousand folks now confirmed dead and another 4,500 still missing.

So while the raw local human cost unfolds, it’s our job to explore how a glacier collapse high up in the Himalayas is now pulling in more world capitals, including through…

⛑️ Rescue operations

Nepal initially said it wouldn’t need foreign rescue teams on the ground:

First, because mountainous Nepal is already strong in the kind of helicopter airlifting it assumed lay ahead.

Second, because of its own experiences after the big 2015 earthquake, with a flood of poorly coordinated foreign teams duplicating and clogging the rescue work.

But also third, we’d note this Rasuwagadhi-Gyirong axis is a China-sensitive border area, so there’s a quiet chance Kathmandu didn’t want foreign uniforms (let alone Chinese or Indian ones) being seen to run the valley — particularly for Nepal’s new-ish PM (Balen, who used to be a rapper).

So… what changed? Hydropower companies started reporting hundreds of missing workers, and Nepal realised it needed a different set of skills and equipment to reach so many folks feared trapped in reinforced tunnels.

So neighbouring China and India both got the green-light to send specialised help, as did South Korea and Australia. They’re now using controlled explosions to tear into hillsides and pump air into the tunnel system in hopes of aiding more survivors. 

Still, opposition figures are already criticising Balen’s government for any initial hesitancy to accept foreign aid, arguing it just burnt critical rescue time — the overwhelming majority of victims and missing folks are Nepali. There are also…

🧳 Foreign nationals 

Those foreign ministry Nepal desks are now working overnight, not just to facilitate those specific rescue asks above, but also for a large and complex consular angle:

August is peak pilgrimage season for nearby Mount Kailash, considered holy for Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, and other pilgrims, plus just a popular trekking destination.

In addition to all the hydro workers from India (70), Korea (9), and China (dozens), there are also entire tour buses missing. So you’ve got ~35 other capitals trying to find (say) 60 Americans, 50 Malaysians, 40 Australians, 30 Brits, and 25 Canadians, right down to solo travellers from Lithuania, the Philippines, and beyond.

But that job is made tricky not just by the geography (a disaster zone stretching thousands of metres above sea level) but also the location: a remote border where China now controls much of the information and exit routes. So that takes us over the border to…

🇨🇳 China 

This whole stretch is awkward for China on several counts:

First, it’s basically a hole in the wall for a Tibet that China annexed back in 1951 and has tightly surveilled and controlled ever since, for fear of revolt. So rather than a normal customs post, it’s a pretty militarised security frontier.

Second, it’s also China’s main overland gate into Nepal, with talk of more Belt-and-Road infrastructure to further bind it economically to China’s orbit — though Kathmandu tends to slow-walk anything that could rock its India-China balance.

And third, China’s ruling Communist Party also has a long record of tightly controlling disaster info to avoid seeming inept.

Those three combined, and it’s no surprise Beijing’s censors have been deleting disaster footage, instead pumping out rescue messaging. Interestingly, they’ve also started policing the narrative abroad, dunking on (unfounded) rumours that construction on China’s side of the border triggered the disaster.

Anyway, some worry the emphasis on narrative might hamper reality on the ground. China is also facing questions around…

⚠️ Early alert systems

Beijing has a long record of withholding upstream hydrological information from its neighbours as leverage — flood-season sharing with India never fully recovered from China’s retaliatory 2017 pause.

In Nepal’s case, it never received much upstream data to begin with, as Beijing seemingly deems any Tibetan stats beyond mere rainfall as too sensitive.

The two neighbours do have a basic deal in place, but Reuters reports as recently as May the Nepalis were pushing for more data, including on glacier movements.

It’s unclear whether more Chinese data would’ve made a difference for a disaster seemingly triggered on Nepali territory, but that’s another problem with not being transparent: it opens you up to criticism, warranted or not. 

But while we’re talking causes, let’s wrap with…

🌏 Climate change 

Landslides are nothing new in the Himalayas, but researchers are flagging two ways in which a warming climate can make mountainsides less stable: first, by melting the permafrost, which binds rocks and ice together, and second, by increasing the rate of water infiltration, which can also destabilise rocks.

Some of the best research comes out of Nepal itself, where the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) only just released its latest glacier assessment on August 12th, eerily warning of “particularly rapid losses in the eastern and central HKH”, an area including where this disaster just took place.

That’s why Nepal’s foreign minister (Khanal) is now drawing attention to Nepal’s low emissions but extreme exposure to climate change, adding "we request the global community to come together and preserve the Himalayan ecosystem".

Sound even smarter:

• Initial estimates suggest the recovery will cost Nepal a tenth of its GDP.

• This disaster has wiped out around a tenth of the electricity supply in Nepal, which is heavily hydro-dependent.