Nepal to Rebuild Early-Warning System on China Border After Deadly Flood, Sources Say

Nepal plans to rebuild an early-warning system at Timure, a border settlement in Rasuwa district, after a glacial flood killed at least 1,114 people in Nepal and China and left nearly 4,000 missing.

The planned equipment includes seismic sensors, cameras and a satellite link known as Very Small Aperture Terminal, or VSAT. Nepali government sources said the system should keep monitoring posts connected if mobile networks fail, allowing officials to detect new hazards and issue warnings quickly.

The equipment will initially be installed at a single site by Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority. Officials have already surveyed the area by helicopter to assess where the instruments should go. The border corridor suffered a communications blackout during last week’s flood, which knocked out at least four gauging stations.

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The landscape is adjusting after the mega event, so [it] could trigger a few more landslides.

One source said a previous early-warning system sent messages every few minutes, but the floods swept it away. “The landscape is adjusting after the mega event, so [it] could trigger a few more landslides,” the source said. The immediate danger from two barrier lakes formed after the glacier collapsed has passed because the lakes drained, but the terrain remains unstable.

Nepal has not formally announced the plans. China has said it shared satellite imagery, hydrological data and information about upstream barrier lakes with Nepal. The planned instruments are located in a sensitive high-altitude area near China’s Tibet region, which is closely watched by Kathmandu, Beijing and New Delhi.

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We had sensors and monitoring stations, but they were not being monitored extensively.