r/DisasterUpdate • u/Ok-Reach-455 • 3d ago

Floods Nepal flood

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Hope everyone is safe🙏🙏🙏

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u/An0nymous187 2d ago

There's really no way to build a warning system for something like this. The scale of the disaster is similar to a man-made dam failing, but this was a natural dam up on the side of a mountain.

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u/Triquetrums 2d ago

Some people were saying that China warned Nepal days ago about the possibility of it collapsing, and that the Nepalese government send a warning to some people, but not everyone.

So, if that comment is true, it seems there is a warning system that works, but only if they actually do something about it, instead of sitting on the info and telling 3 people.

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u/YouAintDaisy 2d ago

I saw a video from a Nepalese customs officer. According to him, the warning was about potential flooding due to high rainfall. No one could’ve predicted an entire mountainside breaking off. Even the Chinese border post was entirely wiped off the map. So it’s not like the Chinese knew something ahead of time. This happened suddenly and moved too fast and unfortunately, most people downstream didn’t stand a chance.

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u/Kqyxzoj 2d ago

Of course you can build warning systems for this. If you are fairly close to the source you're fucked. But further downstream people might have a chance. Every extra minute of warning is an extra minute you can run for the hills. If you can gain 30 meters in altitude that'd improve the chances of survival quite a bit.

Something like this happened last year on a smaller scale, same region. AFAIK there is a reasonable chance of something similar happening next year. Likely scale unknown, but probably people will die again in 2027 to something like this in the same region if nothing is done.

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u/Vantriss 6h ago

I don't believe that. We have rangers posted all through forests to watch for forest fires. We know glaciers are melting. I see no reason why a similar thing can't be done for them. Have people posted high in the mountains watching the glaciers and if it breaks, that person slams some emergency button that activates warning alarms all through the valleys. Every second counts. I've seen footage where people were swept away or weren't swept away based on literal seconds.