ORLANDO, Fla. — A professor in Orlando is watching the deadly fallout of flooding back home in Nepal.
A massive flash flood tore through the Himalayas along the Nepal-China border, leaving hundreds dead and more missing.
Sanam Aksha grew up in the Nuwakot District in central Nepal. He studies disaster recovery and emergency management at UCF. “As a researcher, flooding that basin, it’s something I was thinking,” Aksha said.
However, when he saw the images and video of the floodwater online, he couldn’t believe it.
“I was completely heartbroken,” Aksha said. A day passed before he was able to reach his brother by phone. Their home is above the flooding, but his brother’s wife was at work.
Aksha said his sister-in-law had to crisscross in front of large shipping containers to escape the waters.
“Those trucks are gone, including several dozens of people, that’s what she told me,” he said. “They could not make it.”
Aksha said survivors had only seconds to react as the water moved through the area. “One or two people, she told me, they were pulling her hands,” Aksha said. “I heard people saying, ‘I had to choose between me and my mother.’”
Experts believe the flood was the result of a glacier collapse. Ivan Haigh, director of UCF’s Center for Integrated Coastal Research, said a massive amount of ice and rock fell from a mountain high in the Himalayas.
“This volume was huge, and it fell down into the valley, and it actually caused a dam,” he explained. “So the water dammed up behind this, and over time as the water dams up, eventually the dam can’t hold it anymore.”
Haigh says enough water to fill between 400,000 – 800,000 Olympic swimming pools tore down the valley. He said climate change likely played a role.
“Scientists have been showing for decades that the Himalayas are warming very, very rapidly and glaciers are becoming particularly unstable there,” Haigh said. “So I think this is one event where, with a much higher degree of certainty, we can’t say for sure, but we can certainly suggest that climate had a significant influence here.”
Aksha is continuing to keep track of rescue efforts from Orlando. He said he is grateful that his brother- and sister-in-law survived, but many others remain missing.
“Very happy in that sense, but everything else is gone,” Aksha said. “We have hundreds of friends and relatives that are missing, and our hopes are very low we’ll be able to find them.” Nepal’s government has mobilized more than 14,000 personnel for search and rescue operations.