Workers shoveled thick mud from a flood-ravaged power station in central Nepal, trying to revive a key node that supplies electricity to more than 20,000 people. But as they cleared debris from equipment buried by last week's catastrophic floods, there was hope the plant would not simply be rebuilt in the same place, beside the river that destroyed it. In Nepal, up to 900 workers are unaccounted for from a dozen hydropower projects, according to the Independent Power Producers’ Association, Nepal, with hundreds believed trapped in tunnels.
In Nepal and China combined, over 900 people have died and 4,700 are missing. The loss of hydropower infrastructure is estimated to have taken 700 megawatts offline — about 10% of the country’s power capacity. Once the immediate aftermath of the disaster is dealt with, the question of how to restore power, roads, bridges, schools and health facilities quickly without rebuilding the same vulnerabilities should be on top of Nepalese authorities' minds. disaster experts said.
They will also have to take a close look at other projects in Nepal that have not been built yet, whether they’ll be approved after this event,” said Jakob Steiner, a geoscientist at the University of Graz in Austria, who is currently based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Rebuilding for resilience, not just replacement Hydropower projects that were operating or under construction were fully or partly destroyed across Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading, among the worst-hit districts. Many of the workers had taken shelter in the tunnels but are stuck, waiting to be rescued, according to officials.
Apart from the hydropower projects, tens of kilometers (miles) of roads, multiple bridges and essential buildings like schools and hospitals have been destroyed. Ramraj Narasimhan, a senior director with the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, said rebuilding should focus on continuity of services rather than trying to make every structure indestructible. That can mean choosing a better location for construction, alternate routes, backup power, improved early warning and financial tools such as insurance to speed recovery, Narasimhan said.
Risk assessments should examine where a river bends, where slopes are unstable and where a single failure could cut off several communities. Narasimhan’s organization estimates that $124 billion worth of Nepal’s infrastructure is exposed to climate-driven disasters, creating the potential for hundreds of millions of dollars in losses each year. A report by the coalition earlier this year found that Nepal’s average annual losses are nearly $760 million from various disasters, while the country’s national disaster funds is only a fraction of this amount.
Climate risks grow for Himalayan hydropower Climate scientists said the Himalayan region — which is warming faster than many other parts of the world — is particularly at risk from increasing global warming as a result of human-caused climate change. Climate experts said the flooding adds to evidence that infrastructure planning in the Himalayas is being forced to account for disasters that are increasing as the climate warms. Glaciers across the Hindu Kush Himalaya are losing ice at an accelerating rate, while permafrost degradation, unstable slopes, glacial lakes and increasingly erratic rainfall are raising the risks of floods, landslides and debris flows, according to reports by Kathmandu-based climate research group International Center for Integrated Mountain Development.
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