By Paul Joseph
Fresh flooding in Nepal has swept away houses and suspension bridges, damaged a hydropower project and left five people missing, as rescue operations continue in the affected communities.
The flooding occurred on Sunday along the Budhi Gandaki River in Gorkha district, central Nepal, where the army said about 50 people had been rescued from areas along the riverbank.
No deaths had been reported at the time of the latest update, while authorities continued efforts to establish the full extent of the damage.
Footage of the disaster showed raging floodwaters rushing through a valley and carrying away an entire building complex.
According to Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, about a dozen houses and several suspension bridges were swept away, while a hydropower project sustained damage, with some construction equipment carried off by the floodwaters.
Officials said the river level at one monitoring location rose dramatically from two metres to nearly 8.5 metres within a few hours.
Binod Parajuli, a meteorologist working with the Nepalese government, said the hydrological monitoring station had also been swept away, leaving officials without data from the location.
The cause of the latest flooding remains unclear. Possible explanations include a landslide that temporarily blocked the river or one of its tributaries before the accumulated water burst through, while some residents reportedly observed an ice avalanche upstream.
Experts, however, said the latest debris flow was smaller and moved more slowly than the devastating flash floods recorded in August.
The disaster has renewed concerns in Nepal, which is still struggling to recover from catastrophic flooding that struck border towns near Tibet two months ago, leaving more than 1,400 people dead and thousands missing.
Sunday’s flooding also occurred as communities prepared to celebrate Dashain, one of Nepal’s most important annual festivals.
Many families were forced to abandon their homes, with uncertainty surrounding access to safe shelter and essential supplies.
Save the Children said it was mobilising an emergency response team to assist affected communities.
The organisation’s director in Nepal, Tara Chettry, said children had once again been severely affected by the disaster, warning that many might have lost their homes, schools and communities.
She added that children in Gorkha could still be experiencing shock and distress following the August floods, which had devastated communities barely two months earlier.
The Budhi Gandaki River flows into the Trishuli River, downstream from another tributary associated with the earlier disaster, which was linked to a glacier collapse.
Authorities are continuing to assess the latest damage as efforts to locate the five missing people and support displaced residents remain a priority.
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