UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : Nepal floods update

Nepal: Flooding disaster “not over” as humanitarians work around the clock

While search and rescue efforts continued Friday following flash floods and mudslides in northern Nepal, UN humanitarians are taking stock of the devastation amid concerns over more flooding to come.

The UN’s top official in the country, Lila Pieters Yahia, was one hour into a field visit to the affected areas on Friday morning when a mobile phone alert arrived saying that additional flooding may be on the way.

“We were on the ground for barely an hour and we had to turn around, go back to Kathmandu,” she said.

After a floodwater surge slammed into towns and villages on Wednesday, aid teams have been working around the clock to reach communities cut off by the disaster in the Nepalese districts of Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading, amid fears that water pooling upstream may trigger another disaster.

Speaking from Nepal’s capital Ms. Pieters Yahia told journalists in Geneva that as of Friday 977 people are still missing. According to Nepal's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA), 538 bodies have been recovered.

The Tibet autonomous region of China was also affected and some 560 people remain missing there, according to the authorities.

“We witnessed people [who] had just been rescued as we were walking and visiting one of the sites which has been severely damaged,” Ms. Pieters Yahia recounted. “We saw a whole truck full of people, an entire family had just been rescued and I can tell you it was very, very emotional.”

The UN official called the Government-led response impressive and said that when the alarm went off on Friday morning, “everybody was following the order and seeking refuge.” She also saw trucks loading people who were living by the riverbank and were brought up to safety.

“So there is a system, and what we could observe is the system is working,” she said.

Ms. Pieters Yahia called the damage in the affected areas “just incredible,” with some 40 kilometers of road completely destroyed, as well as 40 bridges destroyed or severely damaged. Some locations are reachable only by helicopter, “so everything is airlifted, even clean water.”

“In living memory, we haven't seen a mountain hazard event like this,” said Kamal Kishore, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and Head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), who highlighted the immense impact “on lives, livelihoods, buildings, infrastructure, bridges, hydroelectric projects, power generation.”

“We are still coming to grips with the extent of the damage,” he told journalists in Geneva.

While humanitarian needs are surging in the three districts of Rasuwa,Nuwakot and Dhading, a full assessment is still ongoing. David Fisher, the Head of Delegation for Nepal at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), said that according to initial estimates “at least 93,000 people have been affected and are in great need.”

The secondary flood is a major concern. While the authorities have been working hard to restore the road access, the IFRC fears “that this will also have been delayed by the alert and asking people to move away from low-lying areas,” he explained.

UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson Ricardo Pires told reporters that while 18 schools have been completely destroyed and another 20 have been damaged, “dozens more are located close to the riverbanks and remain at high risk,” meaning an estimated 10,000 school-aged children in the area need support to continue their education.

The World Health Organization (WHO)’s Tarik Jašarević warned that in a disaster of this scale marked by displacement and overcrowding “we may have disruption of water, sanitation and health services, and that can increase the risk of infectious diseases.”

The current situation is marked by “extremely high risk as well as a lot of uncertainty,” observed the UN’s top disaster risk reduction expert, Mr. Kishore.

“It's a unique challenge for the emergency response itself, because in a sense, the disaster is not yet completely over,” he stressed.

The floods have “again highlighted how fragile mountain ecosystems are and how challenging it is to set up early warning systems in mountain environments,” focusing on a range of cascading hazards.

“There will be a lot of learning in times to come… But for now, it's really the time for solidarity with people of Nepal,” he insisted.

-ENDS-

Nepal floods update - UN OCHA, UNDRR, IFRC, WHO

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