- The glacier collapse causing Nepal's flash flood occurred on Nepal's side, says China Embassy
- Chinese villages along Lhende Khola were hit first, raising calls for data sharing and warnings
- China runs large rescue efforts but limits hydrological data sharing from Tibet region
The Chinese Embassy in Nepal has said that the glacier collapse that caused the devastating flash flood in Nepal happened on the Nepali side of the border. China often holds back water flow-related information from Tibet. This is something that China's neighbours are asking, especially as the Chinese side seems to imply that there was no possibility of issuing early warnings by stating that the incident happened on the Nepal side.
But given the reluctance of China to share data on rivers and waterflow in the Tibet region, calls are growing for more transparency and sharing of data to prevent loss of lives during natural disasters like a glacier collapse or GLOF.
In a statement on Thursday, the spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in Nepal said, "An earthquake or earthquake-like glacier collapse occurred on the Nepalese side on the morning of August 26, 2026, triggering huge mudslides, which caused significant casualties and left people missing on both the Nepali and Chinese sides of the Gyirong- Rasuwagadhi border region."
China has released aerial footage and images of the glacier collapse that took place on the north face of the Lantang Lirung mountain peak which falls within Nepal. But even if the collapse did happen on the Nepalese side of the border, the first villages to see the impact are all located in China and they are situated along the mountain river, Lhende Khola. And the question that experts are raising is can China really escape responsibility in sharing at least the basic risk information with further downstream countries. Especially when it is running such a massive rescue and rehabilitation effort within China after this tragedy.
The Lhende Khola is the boundary between Nepal and China and it eventually meets the Trishuli river. At the point where it meets the Trishuli river is where the immigration centre of Gyirong port and some other buildings related to port infrastructure are situated. CCTV footage has shown this port and the adjacent buildings being completely flattened and destroyed by the gushing water from the Lhende Khola and later the Trishuli river.
Scientists are still in two minds about whether the earthquake caused the slope collapse on the north face, or whether the avalanche was so massive that it caused the seismic event and have not ruled conclusively on the exact sequence of events including how and where exactly the flash flood originated. Some experts have ruled out an earthquake in the area and say what was initially believed to be an earthquake could simply be the shaking caused by massive ice-rock detachment that plummeted into the Lhende Khola.
According to Chinese experts, the elevation difference of several thousand meters accompanied by steep slope meant that the mass of ice, rocks and sediment accelerated as it moved downhill crushing everything in its way. Once transformed into a mudslide, it moved with tremendous force and by the time it reached the junction where the Lhende Khola meets the Trishuli river its force was so huge that the entire port infrastructure, including immigration centre buildings in Rasuwagadhi, Gyirong Port were flattened in seconds and everything was swept away as the CCTV footage shows.
As this huge slush, water and debris moved further downstream into areas like Timure, Syapru Besi, Betrawoti Bazaar, Nuwakot, everything along the river, including bridges, buildings and settlements, were gone in seconds giving those present no chance to escape.
China is running a massive relief and rescue operation that is being overseen on the ground by none other than Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing, also a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee after Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered all-out efforts to search for and rescue people who are missing after the incident. Gyirong County in China is administered by the city of Xigaze and it lies on the southern slopes of the mountains that face Nepal in the Himalayas, south of Tibet. Huge damage and loss of lives have been recorded in China as well.
But the question is not about limiting damage here, it is about saving lives. When mechanisms exist to share information, in an unforeseen circumstance like the one on August 26, saving lives is often about timely information. When there is such a huge and swift movement of sludge along a narrow river valley, there is bound to be destruction of infrastructure. But lives can be saved even if people are evacuated with minutes to spare. And in this case, China's position simply does not encourage sharing of information from Tibet. Emergency or no emergency, the robust information sharing mechanisms simply don't exist.
It is quite clear that Chinese villages and settlements along the Lhende Khola were hit first but that information did not make it to Nepali authorities who could have evacuated the lower areas along the river and saved precious lives. Even if evacuations had been ordered once the first villages in China were hit by the flash flood, perhaps the complex at Rasuwagadi/Gyirong port in China itself could have been evacuated and areas further downstream could have been warned. But China is very careful with any information being shared from the Tibet region and its systems are designed to supress information rather than quick dissemination and relay. And that perhaps explains why even the Gyirong port had no information even though villages upstream seem to have been affected in China after the glacier collapse.
Current reports and the scale of the rescue operations seem to suggest that Chinese villages on the banks of the Lhende Khola have also suffered damage which means that the glacier collapse took place on the north face of the Langtang Lirung. The slush and debris accompanied by rocks and boulders and the huge volume of water started flowing from much before the Gyirong port where thousands of tourists have gone missing, including those headed to Kailash Mansarovar. In the aftermath of tragedy, what does need further attention is how the impact of such tragedies can be minimised in the future and for that China has to move beyond its discomfort with sharing water flow data upstream in its territory when it comes to transboundary rivers.
China is unlikely to allow independent observers into the area given the sensitivity attached to the Tibet region. It is due to strict controls enforced by China and China is reluctant to share data from the existing hydrometeorological stations in Tibet. But voices are growing louder for a multinational institutional framework to be put in place to ensure that China shares at least risk information given its refusal to share information on water flow and quantity in transboundary rivers that flow into lower riparian countries like Nepal and India.
Speaking to NDTV, Former Chief Executive of Nepal's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, Anil Pokhrel, said, "My submission will be again that, data sharing openly is an ideal goal. But there are a lot of animosities around it. And from a practical sense, it would be good to start with sharing risk data, whatever we have. Or, secondly, if there is none, you can start jointly collaborating on generating that risk data, and then creating a common platform where each of us would benefit out of it."
"China does possess a lot of extensive satellite coverage. It also has remote-sensing technology and considerably high altitude meteorological stations in Tibet. What we have recently, has highlighted both the intentions and potential of cross-border cooperation is very limited. In the case of China and Nepal, there are some existing frameworks cross border early warning systems and specially on GLOF (Glacial Lake Outburst Floods)which have been quite successful and they have cooperated on several events in the recent past and I think this time the system has failed to a great extent and therefore the tragedy," Uttam Kumar Sinha, a leading scholar and commentator on transboundary rivers, climate change and the Arctic, told NDTV.
"There has of course been a data sharing gap and some reports from Nepal suggest that China can be a reluctant actor in sharing real-time transboundary hydrological and rainfall data and we also see that happening in the case of India. The MoU that they have on the Brahmaputra, they have stopped that so that is a concern. This does raise a lot of issues vis-a-vis China and the issue of dam building in the Himalayas is of great concern," Uttam Kumar Sinha added.
Prominent voices in Nepal are advocating a multi-national platform as these rivers often involve more than two countries. "The common risk sharing platform would benefit the Chinese communities, Chinese government, but also Bangladesh, India, and Nepal, all of us together, we share the same river basins. So, succeeding risk information is more doable rather than against spending hours, hours, and years on data, and losing valuable information which could be used to save lives and property," Anil Pokhrel told NDTV.
"What I've understood, even while as the chief executive of NDRMA, in my five-year tenure, is that the sparse population in that area is what would not draw enough attention even to Beijing," Anil Pokhrel said signalling towards China's reluctance to accept requests to share information on water flows even as such mechanisms have been attempted before.
"There's a MOU that's been signed between the two respective countries to start this exchange among researchers, scientists, but also share data and risk information between these two countries around risk management. And so that's been formally been established. I think there's been some initial steps that have been take forward to implement that MOU and things are on the pipeline," Pokhrel added.
"That system is yet to be operationalised, but I feel, in the near future, this system is being operationalised. I'd also want to allude to today's all-party decisions by major parties in Nepal, led by Rabi Lamichhane, and it came out with a declaration that we will proactively start again, reaching out to the Chinese government, especially using our diplomatic channels, to set up this transboundary, early warning system," highlighting Nepal's efforts in getting China to share timely information on transboundary rivers.
If any country is affected the most when it comes to transboundary rivers originating in China, along with Nepal, it is India. When it comes to data on the Brahmaputra (Yarlung Tsangpo), India gets very limited data on the river's water level, discharge and rainfall amount from three upstream monitoring stations in Tibet.
India also has concerns over China's massive Medog hydropower project on the Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibet. With a planned capacity of 60,000 MW, the project is expected to become the world's largest hydropower project by 2033. This is an earthquake prone region and any accident or sudden release of water from the dam could have catastrophic consequences downstream in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Bangladesh further downstream. Sudden water release, without early warnings, could lead to flooding in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam and loss of lives if there is no time to evacuate people.
"We have to cautious of and concerned about dam building in the Himalayas. These have geopolitical and more significantly ecological concerns. The Medog Mega Dam which is just about 30 km from the Arunachal Pradesh border in India and it is a 60,000MW dam. We will have to carefully study and see if there are certain hazards due to seismic activity. All these can have tremendous consequences on us. So just to sum up, China's strength and capabilities are quite clear. The early warnings system, they have advanced satellite tracking and glacial monitoring system. Data sharing capability they have but how quickly they relay this data is a matter of concern. It can also be political. These are concerns at the bi-lateral level and at the regional level," Uttam Kumar Sinha highlighting India's concerns over the Medog Project in Tibet.
"We will also have to be aware of the fact that China is geographically located in a very convenient geographical position and it can if it wants to not give data and simply keep quiet. But I do not think that is what the nature of the Chinese is these days. They are a growing power and with power comes responsibility so I think we might see a better regime formation in the future with Chinese actively participating in such kind of data sharing."
