Nepal’s catastrophic floods have proved once again that nature knows no political boundaries. The Hindu Kush-Himalayan mountains comprise one large mountain chain, extending across Pakistan, Nepal, China, and India. The rivers that emanate from these mountains, too, do not recognise borders.

Five South Asian nations—China, Nepal, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh—share common river basins. If anything happens in the upper catchment areas of these rivers, the middle and lower catchment areas will be affected adversely. Sadly, there is little climate diplomacy between these five nations at a time when climate change requires joint adaptation and mitigation steps be taken on a war footing across these nations. This lack of communication and their inability to set up joint early warning alert systems have triggered Nepal’s worst floods in decades, which have left over 1000 people dead and over 5000 missing.

News reports show that on August 26, 2026, a large chunk of ice from an avalanche obstructed the flow of the River Lhende, which emanates from Tibet and flows into Nepal. This obstruction remained unreported from the Chinese end for several hours. It was this obstruction that transformed into a flash flood of such velocity that it destroyed 12 hydropower plants on the Trishuli River, generating 430 megawatts of electricity. Within minutes, the surge of mud and rock and debris destroyed homes, bridges, and dams. Nearly 30,000 homes across almost half of the country have been destroyed, and in some areas up to 80 per cent of the crops have been lost.

Prof. Vimal Khawas, from the Special Centre for the Study of Northeast India at JNU, states, “The trigger for the flood was definitely natural, but the damage that it caused was human-made. It was........

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