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How an IT engineer used AI to aid Nepal’s flood response

From Kathmandu Post · () English

Summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

In-depth Named sources Ongoing story
  • Niraj Bhusal, an IT engineer at Nepal’s Ministry of Finance, developed an AI-powered portal after floods disrupted communications and destroyed infrastructure.
  • The portal aggregates official updates, news reports and satellite data to track casualties, missing people, rescues, relief commitments and physical damage.
  • Bhusal later connected his database to the government’s official rescue system and made the portal available in English as well as Nepali.

When devastating floods struck Nepal on August 26, Niraj Bhusal was preparing for an ordinary day at the Ministry of Finance. News that the Rasuwagadhi customs office on the China-Nepal border had been swept away quickly changed that.

Reliable, unified information about the unfolding disaster was scarce. Bhusal, an IT engineer trained in AI and governance, worked through the night to build the “Rasuwa-Bhote Koshi Flood” portal. He used Grok Bot, the artificial intelligence model developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, to generate the web application’s layout, design and JavaScript code.

Hosted on GitHub, the portal gathers and organizes information from the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, Nepal Police, the Nepali Army, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, news outlets, press releases and satellite APIs. It tracks casualties, missing-person requests, rescues, relief-fund commitments and government statements as the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli rivers tear through roads, power plants, bridges and settlements.

Once the code went live on GitHub, the AI began sending new updates to my mobile phone every five minutes.

· Niraj BhusalBhusal described how the portal delivered automated disaster updates.

Bhusal built in a manual verification system to check each update. “Once the code went live on GitHub, the AI began sending new updates to my mobile phone every five minutes,” he told Kantipur. “To prevent errors, I verify each update manually. That first night, my laptop never went idle, and I only managed to sleep at 4:00 am.”

The portal began as a Nepali-language Google Form for collecting information about missing people. It now also operates in English, allowing Nepalis abroad and international organizations to follow the crisis. After the government launched its own rescue portal, Bhusal linked his database to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority system and directed visitors to official state relief and rescue services. Satellite imagery from the European Union’s Copernicus Earth observation program also allows the site to map damage to homes, roads and bridges.

To prevent errors, I verify each update manually. That first night, my laptop never went idle, and I only managed to sleep at 4:00 am.

· Niraj BhusalHe explained the manual checks he used to validate information gathered by the AI system.
About this summary

Originally published by Kathmandu Post. Summarized and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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