No Sri Lankans have been affected by the sudden flooding of Nepal’s Budhigandaki River so far, and the Sri Lankan Embassy in Kathmandu is monitoring the situation and alerting the Sri Lankan community there, the Foreign Ministry said, according to the Daily Mirror.

The Embassy is in close contact with community members and has advised them to stay alert to developments and avoid travelling to areas that could be affected.

What happened

The flooding struck the Gorkha District of Nepal’s central region. Nepal’s Flood Forecasting Division received preliminary information at around 6 a.m. on 11 October.

At the Budhigandaki-Arughat monitoring station, the water level rose from 2.28 metres at 6.30 a.m. to 5.01 metres at 7.10 a.m. — past the five-metre danger mark — in forty minutes. It then declined, but the monitoring equipment was damaged, preventing further readings.

Nepalese authorities issued about 200,000 SMS alerts in two phases to residents of the Gorkha, Dhading, Nuwakot and Chitwan districts, urging people along the river and downstream to stay in safe locations, keep away from riverbanks and vulnerable settlements, and avoid roads and bridges that could be affected.

Two accounts of the cause

Both accounts agree on an unusual fact: there had been no rainfall in the area in the preceding 24 hours. They draw different conclusions from it.

The account relayed by the Foreign Ministry is that authorities suspect the flooding may have resulted from the sudden release of water from a glacial lake, with a detailed technical analysis required to establish the actual cause.

Nepal’s own disaster authority has pointed elsewhere. Dr Dharmaraj Upreti, executive director of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, told Onlinekhabar that preliminary information — gathered by telephone from residents — suggested an ice avalanche in the northern region may have sent snow, mud and debris into the river. “The actual cause of the flood has not yet been confirmed,” he said. Binod Parajuli, a senior hydrologist at the Flood Forecasting Division, said there was no recorded rainfall in the river’s upper reaches, so the flood could not be attributed to rain.

That Nepali report, published on 11 October, also describes damage the Sri Lankan filing does not cover: part of the motorable bridge linking Aarughat in Gorkha with Dhading was swept away, along with three other bridges. It reports that the disaster authority had confirmed no deaths at the time of writing, while the state news agency reported four people missing in Chumnubri Rural Municipality. A Nepali Army helicopter was deployed from Kathmandu.

Onlinekhabar is a Nepali newsroom and is not among this desk’s verified domains; it is cited here because it is closer to the event than any Sri Lankan filing.

Not reported

The Daily Mirror does not say how many Sri Lankans live in or are travelling through the affected districts, whether any were in the area, or how the Embassy is reaching them. It gives no casualty or damage figures for Nepal, and does not say when a technical assessment of the cause is expected.

Source: Daily Mirror.