Resilience in the face of catastrophe

The scale of the flash floods along the Nepal-Tibet border is difficult to comprehend. Whole villages have been torn apart, dozens of bridges and roads have disappeared, more than 1,000 people have died and thousands remain unaccounted for. Hundreds of hydropower tunnel workers are also trapped.

The disaster has damaged far more than homes. Roads, bridges, power lines and river gauges have collapsed in the worst-affected districts, cutting off routes needed to deliver medical aid and supplies. Displaced families are looking for shelter, injured people need hospitals, and relatives wait for the identification of those who died.

Yet communities have not waited for formal systems to do everything. People whose homes survived, whose phones still work or who live outside the danger zone have become an immediate source of support for neighbours who lost everything. Stories are emerging of a teacher who saved hundreds of students after receiving several warnings about an approaching flood, and of upstream residents who alerted communities downstream.

Those experiences show how local networks can strengthen formal disaster-response systems. In Nepal, the guthi, a social support structure linked to religious sites, rituals and community welfare, can help organise assistance. Phone trees can also spread warnings quickly, with one person contacting several others.

These networks include women’s microfinance and cooperative groups as well as community forest user groups. Research into disaster recovery shows that communities, government agencies, not-for-profit organisations and businesses all have roles to play, but local people consistently carry much of the burden of rebuilding after catastrophe.