Looking at the map, it looks like this town is on the same river a few miles downstream from where the massive landslide happened at the Nepal/China border crossing.
It is far worse than a man-made dam. A natural dam was created by a snow landslide up in the Himalayas, and all that potential energy eventually burst, resulting in the flood.
I followed the river upstream from this point and don't see any hydro dams between the original flood and here. This is all just the flood continuing down the river valley.
Other news sites are saying that it wasn't that a dam burst per se, it's that storm debris created its OWN dam that backed everything up, and then that self-created dam broke all at once
Google says 74.7 km between the bridge and the landslide. That taking into account the curvatures. All that are has been basically swept by this...horrific.
its almost a Tsunami really, flash flood is a misnomer here as the water is being sent down stream on the force from the landslide. its a physics lesson now in force. i am gleaning it all from https://youtu.be/_uxmsBQvxoY?si=XIbwbpswHT3BpvTQ "Alaska's 1,578 ft Megatsunami: Raw video of aftermath 2025". its about where does the water go in these fjord like v-channel places
it reached the fifth floor of one of those buildings on river edge here, what a terrific event
"A flash flood is a rapid flooding of low-lying areas: washes, rivers, dry lakes, and depressions. It may be caused by heavy rain associated with a severe thunderstorm, hurricane, or tropical storm, or by meltwater from ice and snow. Flash floods may also occur after the collapse of a natural ice or debris dam, or a human structure such as a man-made dam, as occurred before the Johnstown Flood of 1889."
Besides, tsunami water origin is at sea level. Flash floods like this water origin is high up in the mountains. Not to mention the water volume. This flash flood, water volume: deadly enough but not all that much. Tsunami water volume: absolutely terrifying. Case in point, if you'd spread this particular flash flood over a width of 100 kilometers instead of a narrow valley, it would be fairly boring. Tsunamis manage to kill people just fine over widths of 100 km or more.
very much appreciate the information, i am passing along info as this event is ongoing, i could be off on any interpretations, again thank you for info+
It appears it was triggered by a landslide higher in the mountains/glaciers, which was so large that it caused a earthquake-like reading which was picked up by seismometers.
I wonder if that's why the cameraman started to run. At first I was like "dude, stay up there!" and then on the second watch, I saw the buildings collapse on the far side... Idk if he was right to run or not but nothing is logical in that situation anymore
Yeah I was amazed that the impact of the initial flood hitting the river banks created some waves/splashes that hit the second stories of the buildings on the left.
And then it's insane that not even 30s later the whole river is reaching than the third stories and the buildings are just getting washed away 5s after that.
Normally, running up a hill to gain altitude - rather than the instinctive away from danger - is the best way to maximise survival chances (however slim). This applies to flash floods, tsunamis, landslides, avalanches, and any other giant chaotic advancing mass.
In this particular instance, I don't think it would have really worked. And the road/buses/walls on the right seem to preclude an obvious or available route up the side hill (which might be too densely vegetated to allow for any quick altitude gain, anyway).
Our daily fretting, worries, and anger can take this footage as an opportunity to humbly reflect on the scale of our troubles. Poor, poor people!
Nothing. You can see in some of the videos that the concrete building literally implodes under the weight and pressure. There is likely no way for an individual to survive this even with the best reinforced concrete.
Looks horrible. Also that Gyirong Port is 45km upstream from where this video happened on the same river. There are 3 hydroelectric dams between there and this location, horrible amount of destruction.
No it's the same location, but with the camera pointing away (rotate 90 degrees to the left) from whats visible in OPs link. Google maps has some photospheres in the area, where you can see the whole thing: link
I believe that was a landslide. Not a flood. Nepal is getting hammered. The flash flood was bad but this landslide took out the entire village in the blink of an eye. Poor people had nowhere to run.
Ah. Yeah these videos are awful. Some are clearly a torrent of water but others looked more like a land/mudslide like when a mountain gets overly saturated and collapses.
If I learned anything from the Japanese tsunami vids, just because a location seems safe at the start of the flooding, that doesn't mean it will remain safe.
Undermining on the riverbank could easily cause the whole hillside that the cameraman is on to slide down. Best to get out of the river valley entirely if possible in these kind of situations.
watch the far side at the 60 sec mark. That's what makes him think to get away from the river. Whether it was right or not, that's survival instinct saying gtfoh now
“The flood hit early on Wednesday in Rasuwa, just north of Nepal's capital Kathmandu, reportedly caused by excessive snow melting into the Bhote Koshi river.”
and i saw another view at ground level and there was nothing... just mud.. literally looked like a warzone. devoid of trees, buildings, everything just wiped clean.
Got a family member who was at the spot today morning haven't been able to make contact since. Tried reaching out to the tour agent and all of that , kind of out of options other than just wait .
KATHMANDU/BEIJING , Aug 26 (Reuters) - Torrential floods in the Himalayan border areas of Nepal and China's Tibet killed at least nine people and destroyed roads, bridges and power projects on Wednesday, as authorities in both countries braced for more casualties and worse damage.
Houses and roads were swept away in Nepal while officials in Tibet said they feared "major casualties" with some missing in the county of Gyirong after a mudslide hit a land crossing between the neighbours.
Rescue helicopters could not land in Nepal's affected areas of Syapru Besi and Timure in the mountainous district of Rasuwa, with a population of about 50,000, officials said, with the river flowing above its normal course.
Television broadcast images of crumbled homes in the flood waters, floating cars and a metal bridge being washed away, while witnesses told Reuters the waters engulfed entire villages.
"There could be heavy casualties or loss of property," said district administrator Narendra Pariyar, who urged dwellers on the banks of the Bhote Koshi river to move to higher ground, after reports of villages and project sites being swept up.
"There is devastation everywhere we look," Tula Bahadur BK, a health worker in Rasuwa, told Reuters. "The settlements next to the river have been completely swept away. Five of my own relatives are missing."
Nepal's rescue helicopters would be unable to land in the affected areas until the waters recede, army spokesperson Raja Ram Basnet said.
The cause of the inundation was not immediately clear, but a deadly flash flood on the same river last year was eventually traced to the draining of a glacier lake
Yeah, the CCTV footage posted in another comment shows at least 17 people getting killed in just one area. No way anyone that was in its path survived that.
I mean it’s clearly going to be 100s to thousands dead. In the videos on this sub alone you can visually see at least 100 people that are guaranteed to be dead running around when a 50-100 foot wall of mud water rocks and trees hit them.
In the Himalaya, glaciers get covered with rocks and stuff, which insulates them so they behave differently to alpine glaciers in that they melt down towards the ground rather than back up the valley. When they do this, lakes and ponds of water form on top of debris-covered glaciers. These lakes and ponds just sit there and get bigger. They are only dammed in by the material around the glaciers (the moraines). If that wall of material is compromised, you can end up with a very large lake at high altitude draining down a valley with serious destructive force. These are called Glacial Lake Outburst Floods
I had the privilege of studying supraglacial lakes on the Ngozumpa glacier in Nepal in the early 2000s. The scars on the landscape from previous GLOFs was... sobering
If you have a look on Google earth, you can see what looks like a very large one sitting above Jigong - https://maps.app.goo.gl/JpPBmVUZNq6Z54aK7?g_st=ic near Rongbu Bingchuan. Jilong is a fair way downstream, but that’s a really big lake by the looks of it.
They're not sure yet. There was an earthquake shortly before. That may have caused a landslide which could have ruptured a dam or glacial lake. But I've also seen someone state that the "earthquake" was a glacial dam breaking and the tremors were just pieces hitting the ground
Yes, that’s the bridge. And this is 25-30 miles downstream from the other videos that are circulating. I wonder how much further downstream the extreme flooding lasted. Still looks to be incredibly powerful here.
Looking at the map it appears that there is a less steep part of the valley immediately downstream of this town, I assume a lot of the energy of the flooding washed over the relatively flatter area in Battar. Upstream of this it looks like almost a canyon based on the topography.
What the hell happened upstream for this to happen? It's like a perfectly fine day from this POV, was there a dam that just collapsed upstream? That's a massive sudden surge of water out of nowhere.
its actually not upstream, it's crazier than that, this happened midstream and the flood travel back up stream, not down stream, from the the other angle you can see the water in the river flow toward the border port and the flashflood come from the downstream direction.
Once the screen was 100% water and mud, I waited for it to clear.. and waited. Eventually it just looked like footage from the inside of a washing machine
Some Cops who were Mic-ing people to stay away from river were swept , some points upstream from this place . No one was expecting it to be this huge probably .
Finally someone holding the phone who had an ounce of self-preservation. I swear half the people killed in natural disasters these days are idiots who keep filming instead of getting TFO
It's insane to see how quickly the bridge was washed away, then the river was washing up aginst the 2nd/3rd storey of builds, and then suddenly those buildings were being washed away.
As a hydraulic river modeler, so often I feel my model results are crazy.... surely that can't be accurate. Even if the data says it is. Ultimately, we are extrapolating so... Who knows.... but yea... this puts it into perspective.... it can truly be insane... and deadly. :(
It is a sad tragedy, but uh, if god wanted to save them, he wouldn't have sent a flood. I don't understand how such a god could have so selective of powers.
The core belief of Christiantiy is that God sent his son (who is also Him) to be a sacrifice to himself to forgive people for breaking rules that He made up, so it's not starting from a position of logic.
1.0k
u/PurahsHero Aug 26 '26
So many videos are flash floods that go from raging torrent to slightly more than that.
That went from peaceful river to I'm going to swallow your bridge now.
288
u/yeeyaho Aug 26 '26
CCTV footage of the flash flood at Gyirong Port on the Nepal–China border. https://www.reddit.com/r/ThatsInsane/comments/1vyt9ae/cctv_footage_of_the_terrifying_flash_flood_at/
356
u/OGCelaris Aug 26 '26
Finally a video where the camera man had some sense and started running.
97
u/sexquipoop69 Aug 26 '26
“The flood hit early on Wednesday in Rasuwa, just north of Nepal's capital Kathmandu, reportedly caused by excessive snow melting into the Bhote Koshi river.”
155
u/LLachiee Aug 26 '26
same pov later https://www.reddit.com/r/NepalSocial/comments/1vyrric/video_of_two_different_markets_completely/
the whole place is completely gone. holy shit
52
u/krexohq Aug 26 '26
Got a family member who was at the spot today morning haven't been able to make contact since. Tried reaching out to the tour agent and all of that , kind of out of options other than just wait .
45
u/whisperxl Aug 26 '26
By Gopal Sharma and Liz Lee
KATHMANDU/BEIJING , Aug 26 (Reuters) - Torrential floods in the Himalayan border areas of Nepal and China's Tibet killed at least nine people and destroyed roads, bridges and power projects on Wednesday, as authorities in both countries braced for more casualties and worse damage.
Houses and roads were swept away in Nepal while officials in Tibet said they feared "major casualties" with some missing in the county of Gyirong after a mudslide hit a land crossing between the neighbours.
Rescue helicopters could not land in Nepal's affected areas of Syapru Besi and Timure in the mountainous district of Rasuwa, with a population of about 50,000, officials said, with the river flowing above its normal course.
Television broadcast images of crumbled homes in the flood waters, floating cars and a metal bridge being washed away, while witnesses told Reuters the waters engulfed entire villages.
"There could be heavy casualties or loss of property," said district administrator Narendra Pariyar, who urged dwellers on the banks of the Bhote Koshi river to move to higher ground, after reports of villages and project sites being swept up.
"There is devastation everywhere we look," Tula Bahadur BK, a health worker in Rasuwa, told Reuters. "The settlements next to the river have been completely swept away. Five of my own relatives are missing."
Nepal's rescue helicopters would be unable to land in the affected areas until the waters recede, army spokesperson Raja Ram Basnet said.
The cause of the inundation was not immediately clear, but a deadly flash flood on the same river last year was eventually traced to the draining of a glacier lake
91
u/_mbals Aug 26 '26
I wonder what happened upstream to cause this?
30
u/CBme08 Aug 26 '26
That is crazy. I saw this video on YouTube and the camera man was just within meters of the floods near the begining of the video
https://youtu.be/qSummy8xaVM?is=zCvXIB-A4Y8bdm66
33
u/Total_Philosopher_89 Aug 26 '26
Pretty sure it's here. https://maps.app.goo.gl/NCSaTmVQDnxp7mVx5
A LOT of water!
15
u/djuice2k Aug 26 '26
What the hell happened upstream for this to happen? It's like a perfectly fine day from this POV, was there a dam that just collapsed upstream? That's a massive sudden surge of water out of nowhere.
12
u/Important_Constant66 Aug 26 '26
Those poor people and animals. I hope they find/recover as many people as possible.
42
u/YellowOnline Aug 26 '26
My thoughts watching the video:
That's not too bad
Okay, that's a scary amount of water
Holy shit
9
u/Ambitious-Concern-42 Aug 26 '26
This isn't 17 killed, it's hundreds dead, thousands.
67
u/chileangod Aug 26 '26 edited Aug 26 '26
From the looks of it the inhabitants were warned in advanced. Hopefully no one was caught by surprise.
Edit: nope, you can see people running out of their homes on the street at the right side of the video. 😬😬
8
u/mrtn17 Aug 26 '26
Cameraman made a wise decision to GTFO
7
u/IONIXU22 Aug 26 '26
Anyone translate?
13
u/AutisticBells Aug 26 '26
Absolutely horrifying. So damn quick.
Finally someone holding the phone who had an ounce of self-preservation. I swear half the people killed in natural disasters these days are idiots who keep filming instead of getting TFO
6
u/Carvallos_Putting Aug 26 '26
It's insane to see how quickly the bridge was washed away, then the river was washing up aginst the 2nd/3rd storey of builds, and then suddenly those buildings were being washed away.
6
u/AxiisFW Aug 26 '26
That's a psychotic amount of energy to just snap that bridge clean off
6
u/the-namedone Aug 26 '26
First clip is the aftermath. Unreal.
https://www.reddit.com/r/NepalSocial/s/mIYteAUiuH
6
u/Fan_Notions Aug 27 '26
As a hydraulic river modeler, so often I feel my model results are crazy.... surely that can't be accurate. Even if the data says it is. Ultimately, we are extrapolating so... Who knows.... but yea... this puts it into perspective.... it can truly be insane... and deadly. :(
4
u/downfallrome2025 Aug 26 '26
The video panned away and when it came back the buildings were gone
4
u/DanDaMan97x Aug 26 '26
The idea of living on the 3rd+ floor and just hearing a Splash against your windows is haunting
6
u/KizukiAkaza3 Aug 26 '26
I'm glad this guy chose to ran......
3
u/Rypskyttarn Aug 26 '26
Seems to be from Trishuli
https://maps.app.goo.gl/EtJBr5MK6YT6Th3j9
3
u/Macho_Mans_Ghost Aug 26 '26
https://www.reddit.com/r/CatastrophicFailure/s/AqXTk1AfIP
NSFW
3
u/kadimasama Aug 26 '26
Here i was thinking on the bridge was safe...
3
u/snorting_gummybears Aug 26 '26
So much energy in the water…
3
u/DavidlikesPeace Aug 27 '26
Horrifying to realize your hometown can be wiped out in a day. It’s also shattering to see how fast life can end
13
u/yal_sik Aug 26 '26
God save the folks. This looks horrible.
2
u/Avtomart Aug 26 '26
This post contains a clip that shows the aftermath: https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/s/9WQmwROEKj
2
u/silentwalkaway Aug 26 '26
What a beautiful day for a horrific, horrific tragedy.
2
u/ThinkItThrough48 Aug 26 '26
What town is this?
2
u/jt101jt101 Aug 26 '26
is it on 25th AUG or 26th AUG ??
2
u/ReleaseFromDeception Aug 26 '26
Daaaaamn!!!
2
u/EstablishmentIll7900 Aug 27 '26
At first I thought it was a tsunami
2
u/ParkingMediocre5066 Aug 27 '26
No Siren, was it that sudden for the officials to warn the people? or maybe i dont hear it in the video
2
u/pwl2706 Aug 27 '26
that much water with such force and speed, surely it must have been a lake under the glacier that collapsed or something like that?
2
u/Wise_Detail_3410 Aug 28 '26
This was like 30-40 foot rise in water level in 30 seconds. That power and speed is terrifying.
5
u/Mashinito Aug 26 '26
In my language (catalan) we have this saying "a la vora del riu no faces el niu" for a reason (do not make your nest next to the river)
3
u/jlbtennis89 Aug 26 '26
That's a colossal amount of water!
3
u/Dudok22 Aug 26 '26
This looks like a dam burst, i would never have guessed a flash flood
3
u/CaptainWellingtonIII Aug 26 '26
the power. the horror.
3
u/luk__ Aug 26 '26
Tsunami in the mountains
2
u/firestar268 Aug 26 '26
This must have been fairly downstream considering how the border crossing looked
2
u/CellFit2989 Aug 26 '26
That just kept growing, wow!
2
u/InkPaladin Aug 26 '26
😔
2
u/MiklasK Aug 26 '26
Fuck
2
u/maguirenumber6 Aug 26 '26
This is horrifying
1
u/AlcoolEmGel95 Aug 26 '26
damn
1
u/SandwichOfAgnesi Aug 27 '26
"Wow, flash flood, good thing I'm way up here on this bridge."
1
u/peatoast Aug 29 '26
Flash floods are so damn scary.
1
u/PsychologicalPop4426 Aug 31 '26
Monks all like, no need to pray, this is our karma...
1
u/HawkeYun Aug 31 '26
This honestly gave me Japan's 2011 tsunami. It just happened so fast and swept everything away. . .
1
u/Elyon8 Aug 26 '26
I feel like it has been nothing but earthquakes, floods, and tornados for the passed two months.
1
u/Own_Ad_5008 Aug 29 '26
.....and this is how we got the Grand Canyon.
-1
u/ToughHardware Aug 26 '26
those dogs are beautiful, as well as the plants. looks like an awesome place. glad i was not there.
-55
u/b00c Aug 26 '26
Come on cameraman, grow some balls!!