Helplessness and Hope: Nepal's Diaspora in Qatar Watches Devastating Floods Unfold From Afar

For the Nepali expat community in Qatar, catastrophic floods and landslides have brought a profound sense of fear and helplessness from thousands of kilometres away. As they anxiously call family members, follow digital updates, and watch familiar landscapes transform on their screens, the distance from home feels increasingly heavy.

While Nepal's monsoon often brings a comforting nostalgia of cooler days and familiar rhythms, it also brings the painful reality of swollen rivers and flooded roads. Following the disaster that struck on 26 August, smartphones have become the primary windows to a country that many cannot immediately reach, turning checking the news into an uneasy daily routine.

Chandra Bahadur Dhakal, who has lived in Qatar for nearly 16 years, immediately contacted his parents after recognizing his old village in online videos. Finding that parts of the landscape had completely vanished, he noted that entire houses were washed away with mud rising up to three floors. Furthermore, the destruction of the bridge connecting his old village to a location in Rasuwa forced his family to navigate longer routes behind the hills.

For Anudit Basnet, a Communications Executive at the Qatar office of a global PR company, the initial reaction to the flooding turned to horror upon viewing circulating CCTV footage and ground videos. Reminded of his time volunteering after the 2015 earthquake, Basnet expressed a suffocating sense of helplessness and flashbacks while watching from afar.

According to Manish Shrestha, a hydrologist at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), about 80% of Nepal's annual rainfall occurs between June and September, with roughly 72% of floods happening during the monsoon. However, Shrestha described this particular event as exceptionally rare and grim, leaving communities like Syafrubesi and Betrawati Bazar buried under debris.

Sher Muhammad, a cryosphere specialist at ICIMOD, explained that satellite and drone imagery revealed the immediate trigger was not rainfall, but a massive rock and ice avalanche. A large chunk of glacier ice measuring over one kilometer, along with underlying bedrock from the northern side of the Langtang Lirung massif at an elevation of 5,000 to 5,200 meters, detached and descended roughly 2,000 meters into the Lhende Khola, creating a debris-rich flood.

For Hira Kumari Bohara, who moved to Qatar in 2021 to work as a waitress, calling her family has become an essential routine to cope with the profound fear and anxiety brought on by the disaster. Across the wider diaspora, this shared concern helps knit the young Nepali community abroad—spanning the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East—into a vital network for support and information.

Despite significant advancements in weather forecasting, issuing timely warnings remains a formidable challenge due to Nepal's rugged mountainous terrain and remote communities. While the government distributed over 679,000 SMS alerts, unpredictable hazards like rock-and-ice avalanches make exact forecasting extremely difficult. As scientists continue to study these glacial and slope changes, individuals like Chandra Bahadur Dhakal look forward to soon traveling back to Nepal to reconnect with their families and see how their homeland has changed.