Nepal floods: Disaster exposes gaps in warning, China data sharing
Catastrophic floods in Nepal have highlighted critical gaps in high-altitude weather monitoring and the lack of trans-boundary data sharing with China. Experts argue that better forecasting is essential to prevent future loss of life as climate change destabilizes Himalayan glaciers.
Why it matters
The disaster underscores the geopolitical and humanitarian necessity of international cooperation in climate monitoring and disaster risk reduction.
KATHMANDU: Victims of Nepal’s catastrophic floods had barely a few minutes’ warning before the waters came rushing through, highlighting gaps in high-altitude weather monitoring and data sharing with neighboUring China.
"People even didn’t get five minutes of lead time,” Dharam Raj Uprety, chief executive of Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, told Bloomberg News in an interview.
"We don’t have weather stations in high mountain areas” because of the "lack of trans-boundary data seeding mechanisms,” or limited sharing of weather and climate data across national borders.
That is one of our "biggest challenges,” he said.
The devastating floods last week that killed at least 800 people and have left more than 3000 missing have exposed a dangerous blind spot in the Himalayas, Upreti said, as warming temperatures destabilise glaciers and mountain slopes faster than authorities can build systems to monitor them.
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