Nepal rain brings floods, landslides that kill 10, with seven missing

KATHMANDU – Incessant rain in Nepal has unleashed floods and landslides that killed at least 10 people with another seven missing during the last 24 hours, while disrupting transport, officials said on Sept 28.

Most rivers in the Himalayan nation have swollen, spilling over roads and bridges, the authorities said, after nearly a week’s delay in the retreat of South Asia’s annual monsoon rain brought torrential downpours across the region.

Police were working to clear debris and reopen roads to traffic after landslides blocked highways at 28 locations, police spokesman Dan Bahadur Karki said.

The earliest let-up in the rain might not come until Sept 29, said Ms Binu Maharjan, a weather forecasting official in the capital, Kathmandu. She blamed a low-pressure system over parts of neighbouring India for 2024’s extended rainy season.

“Heavy rain is likely to continue until Sunday morning and the weather is likely to clear after that,” Ms Maharjan told Reuters.

Most central and eastern areas had received moderate to extremely heavy rain, ranging from 50mm to more than 200mm, she said, with moderate levels elsewhere.

International flights were operating but many domestic flights were disrupted, said Mr Rinji Sherpa, a spokesman for Kathmandu airport.

Roads and homes in the hill-ringed capital have been inundated after rivers overflowed with more than 200mm of rain, the authorities said.

The Koshi river in the south-east, which causes deadly floods in India’s eastern neighbouring state of Bihar almost every year, was running above the danger level at 450,000 cusecs versus the normal figure of 150,000 cusecs, one official said.

A cusec is a measurement of water flow equivalent to one cubic foot (28.3 litres) a second.

The river level was still rising, added Mr Ram Chandra Tiwari, the area’s top bureaucrat.

Hundreds of people die during the monsoon season every year in the landslides and flash floods common in the mountainous nation. REUTERS