At around 8:45am on August 26, Karbir Gaire, a customs and information officer at Nepal's Rasuwa Customs Office, suddenly felt what seemed like an earthquake. He went outside, looked towards China and saw a huge flood accompanied by dust. He shouted, "The flood is coming, run!"
Author
- Nirajan Shiwakoti
Professor, School of Engineering, RMIT University
Gaire and others immediately ran uphill. About 10 seconds later, the muddy water swept away the structures around him.
Gaire later told local media outlet Ratopati those 10 seconds were decisive: people who recognised the danger and ran towards higher ground survived. Others who delayed or ran elsewhere were swept away, or went missing.
His experience captures a potentially life-saving truth: a warning only saves lives if it produces immediate action.
For Australia's Nepalese community, including me and my family, this disaster is deeply personal. Families and friends across Australia are waiting anxiously for news of loved ones.
But beyond the immediate devastation, the disaster raises an important question: could lives be saved if people were trained to act immediately when a flood warning arrives?
I believe the answer is yes.
Disaster in Nepal
The devastating August 26 flood originated in the high Himalayas near the Nepal-China border and sent a massive surge of water through the Bhote Koshi and Trishuli-Narayani river systems.
Hundreds of people have died, and many remain missing in Nepal and Tibet . At least 39 Australians have been reported missing.
It is important not to portray this disaster simply as a failure of warning. Nepal has an established flood forecasting and early-warning system, including hydrological monitoring and mobile phone alerts .
The preliminary technical report from Nepal's Flood Forecasting Division, as reported by the news media , provides an important timeline. Authorities received information at about 9am that a flood had entered the Bhote Koshi from the Tibetan side. Between 9:15 and 9:16, some 600,000 early-warning SMS messages were sent to vulnerable communities in Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Dhading and Chitwan.
The division says the timely dissemination of the warning helped many people reach safety.
The lesson, therefore, is not that early warning is useless. Rather, early warning must be connected to early action. For example, people need to understand what "evacuate" means.
How do people react in emergencies?
My research on emergency evacuation behaviour provides relevant insights. In one study , we surveyed 1,134 train passengers in Melbourne about how they would respond during an emergency evacuation. We found passengers were more likely to be reactive than proactive. For example, they were more likely to wait for instructions from station staff than to immediately move towards an exit themselves. They were also likely to follow what other passengers were doing.
In a second study , we surveyed 950 passengers, 500 at Melbourne Airport and 450 at Qingdao International Airport in China, about how they would behave during an emergency. Importantly, we found passengers' perceptions of how they would cope were related to their perceived ability to evacuate safely. This suggests that knowing what to do - such as following evacuation procedures and leaving belongings behind - can influence how confident people feel.
Although we examined transport emergencies rather than floods, the lessons are relevant: people should not have to work out what to do for the first time when disaster is already unfolding.
They should already know when to leave, where to go and how to reach safety. This shows the public needs to be prepared before emergencies occur.
We need to prepare the public for floods with a simple, rehearsed response. When an extreme flood warning is issued, people in vulnerable areas should already know their local evacuation procedure. They should be familiar with how to leave the river area and move to higher ground. They should not wait to see the water, return for possessions or attempt to save a vehicle.
Technology is necessary, but not enough
Nepal needs continued investment in flood and rainfall monitoring, mobile alerts and community warning systems.
But the physical monitoring infrastructure is vulnerable: four automatic hydrological monitoring stations were reportedly swept away in Nepal . Warnings should still be possible through alternative sensors, satellites, cameras, sirens, radio, public-address systems and trained local networks.
Nepal already has experience with community-based flood early-warning systems that combine monitoring, communication and community preparedness . In these systems, rising floodwaters can be detected in near-real time and warning information is transmitted to trained local caretakers, who relay it to vulnerable downstream communities and relevant authorities through channels such as SMS, mobile phones and sirens.
Education determines whether the warning becomes action.
Recovery will take years
The immediate priority remains rescuing those who can be found, locating the missing, treating the injured, and providing food and medical assistance.
But recovery will extend far beyond the immediate rescue operation.
Homes, roads, bridges, schools and livelihoods will need to be restored, while survivors may need long-term psychological and social support.
Reconstruction should therefore aim not simply to rebuild what was lost, but to build back safer, with stronger infrastructure, resilient communication networks, better evacuation routes and better-prepared communities.
The tragedy of Nepal's floods reminds us we cannot prevent every extreme event but we can improve people's chances of survival. An effective early-warning system is measured not only by how many warnings it sends but also by whether people understand them and act in time. As one survivor's experience shows, sometimes just 10 seconds can mean the difference between life and death.
For those who lost their lives, and for the families still waiting for loved ones, my deepest thoughts and prayers are with you. The most meaningful tribute to those lost is to learn from this tragedy and build a safer, better-prepared future.
Nirajan Shiwakoti receives funding from the Australian government and other research funding organisations for research on transport, mobility and emergency evacuation. He is of Nepali origin and has a personal connection to Nepal, where he has family and community ties. He has no financial or commercial interests in the technologies, organisations or infrastructure discussed in this article.
