Computer science senior Pranita Khanal, left, and aerospace engineering senior Bishesh Gaire discuss materials during a Nepalese Student Association meeting Sept. 14. Khanal and Gaire, members of the organization, helped plan a fundraiser for people in Nepal.
On Aug. 26, flash floods hit the northern part of Nepal, affecting areas such as Rasuwa, Gorkha, Nuwakot, among others. Around 1,300 bodies have been recovered while thousands remain missing, according to the BBC.
The flood hit the Nepal-Tibet border, where hundreds of tourists were crossing. The flood was caused by a partial collapse of a glacier near Langtang National Park, according to the BBC.
Pranita Khanal, Nepalese Student Association vice president and treasurer, said it was around 3 a.m. when she learned about the flood. She saw an Instagram reel of the flood taking down a building near the Nepal-China border.
“It was really crazy seeing how the Trishuli River, which is only 79 meters wide, grew up to 350 meters wide, so it means that the houses on the banks of the river areas were all swept away,” Khanal said.
Khanal said hearing stories related to the devastation of people’s homes and families due to the flooding was difficult.
“If I’m talking about affected areas, imagine, just imagine your family, imagine your brother being swept away, imagine your mom being swept away, and you have no idea what to do or anything like that,” she said.
“I feel so sad whenever I hear of the stories, and it is not only one or two stories I hear because thousands of people are affected by flood right now.”
The group is holding a fundraiser to help provide relief to the people in Nepal who have been affected.
“It’s very devastating knowing that people of our own country are suffering,” said Saurya Pandey, Nepalese Student Association president.
Sugam Mahat, a former Nepal resident and a PhD student working at the Water Engineering Research Center at UTA, said Nepal is a green country with an increased afforestation rate that emits only 0.1% of carbon in the world.
“We have better carbon infrastructure, but we’ve been facing the consequences of the things we did not do,” Mahat said.
Members of the Nepalese Student Association review printed information about flooding in Nepal during a meeting Sept. 14. The group’s event manager, Prabidhi Ghimire, said melting glaciers caused by climate change contributed to flooding that devastated communities across Nepal.
Mahat, who researches the Hill Country flood warning project in Texas, said Nepal’s terrain can create violent floods.
“Nepal is a very steep place, and the Himalayas are, of course, extremely steep. When one huge chunk of rock falls down, it doesn’t just take water, it takes water, the ice, all of the things in that debris area,” he said. “It erodes everything.”
Once the erosion occurs and the more it flows downstream gathering mass, the more likely it is to travel farther, Mahat said.
“The second thing is, because of such steep terrain, the rock, the debris, everything gathered so much mass and so much velocity that it swept away everything,” he said. “I believe the estimates for the first slide was around 120 miles per hour — that was the speed.”
Mahat said global warming played a role in the cause of this disaster.
“This is not the first glacial outburst or glacial slide, and certainly, it’s not going to be the last because the ice is melting everywhere.”
Asim Paudel, a PhD student working alongside Mahat at the research center, remembers his close friend who died in a low-intensity flash flood in Nepal.
“I definitely am exposed to the kind of effects or the kind of devastation floods can cause, not just in the economy and whatnot, but in people and in families,” he said. “Usually these kinds of natural disasters, they do not discriminate.”
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