Is Nepal's flood a harbinger of what's to come in the Himalayas?
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what → come → Himalayas
On a recent September day, Sumana Shrestha Amatya stood alongside other protesters in the Nepali capital, urging the government to work faster to find their loved ones, trapped inside hydropower plants since flash floods devastated miles of a river valley in late August.
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floods → stand → August
Amatya says she hasn't heard from officials about her husband, Sunil, a geologist.
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she → say → husband
Still, she acknowledged the scale of the disaster that the government was grappling with: "It was like a Himalayan tsunami."
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It → acknowledge → tsunami
It's a description other Nepalis have used for the events of Aug. 26, when a glacier and its bedrock spanning more than 3,800 feet in width collapsed into a river valley, some 4,000 feet below.
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glacier → use → valley
That triggered 30-feet high waves of boulders, water and ice that surged for miles downstream.
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that → trigger → miles
It swept away a multistory border building and some 70 bridges and miles of highway, and buried 12 hydropower plants under mud and boulders along the Trishuli river, which was badly impacted by the floods.
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which → sweep → floods
Some 1,400 bodies have been recovered in Nepal, and more than 5,000 remain unaccounted for.
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5,000 → recover → Nepal
The dead and missing include 121 people who were trapped in hydropower plants, according to Brigadier General Subas Jung Thapa of the Nepali army, which is leading rescue efforts.
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which → miss → efforts
He spoke in early September.
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He → speak → September
It took days just to find the power plants under the mud.
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It → take → mud
It was like "a bomb's gone off," said Arnold Dix, a tunneling expert helping with rescue efforts.
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Dix → go → efforts
"It's removed the power stations from the surface, like they're just not there."
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they → remove → surface
Only three men were found alive in the plants since rescue efforts began.
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efforts → find → plants
Did hydropower projects add to the risk?
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projects → add → risk
It is those hydropower plants that have received the most scrutiny in regional media since the floods, with experts reviving questions about whether developers had properly assessed the risks of building them in the Himalayas.
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developers → receive → Himalayas
"We need to understand what is happening now in Nepal can happen in other parts of the Himalayas," says C.P. Rajendran, an Indian geoscientist who has been critical of big construction works in the Himalayas.
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who → need → Himalayas
(Rajendran, like many Indians, uses initials for his first name.)
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Rajendran → use → name
Critics have also focused on the role of international institutions like the World Bank, which has long supported some of these hydropower projects and their associated dams.
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which → focus → projects
They include one of the biggest hydropower projects in the river basin, known as the Upper Trishuli-1, which cost Nepal over half a billion dollars.
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which → include → dollars
It was backed by about $300 million in loans and equity by two arms of the World Bank.
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It → back → Bank
Thapa of the Nepali army said in his press briefing that he estimated some 50 people were trapped inside.
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people → say → briefing
On Wednesday, the Kathmandu Post reported the bodies of five men were recovered from the plant.
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bodies → report → plant
"Why did it have to happen in the first place?" asked Parineeta Dandekar, an expert on rivers who has written critically about these projects for the advocacy group South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People.
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who → have → Dams
Dandekar accuses the World Bank of producing a flawed risk assessment report for the project from the get-go.
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Dandekar → accuse → go
Its many omissions, Dandekar says, included ignoring "the cumulative disaster risk that can happen after having so many projects across the same river."
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that → say → river
Experts say the Trishuli river basin has 36 hydro power projects — including the dozen now under the mud.
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basin → say → mud
Dandekar says the constant blasting of mountains to build these projects, including for miles-long tunnels, has its own impact.
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blasting → say → impact
It's a region where earthquakes and landslides are common, and where climate change is causing its glaciers to melt more rapidly, making them — and their slopes — more unstable.
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them → cause → ?
Initial analysis suggests global warming exacerbated the melting of the glacier that snapped off in August, triggering flash floods.
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that → suggest → floods
There's no clear evidence that the construction of these projects had a role in causing the severity of the Aug. 26 disaster.
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construction → be → disaster
But experts like geoscientist Rajendran says construction has caused damage in other communities where hydropower projects are being built, including damaging mountain springs, causing homes to crack and even landslides.
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homes → say → springs
In this case though, says Dipak Gyawali, a hydropower engineer with the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology, "compared to the tectonic forces at play that caused this event, dynamiting is minuscule.
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dynamiting → say → event
It's like scratching your skin.
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It → scratch → skin
But he and other experts said developers were not seriously investigating the risk caused by so many projects built in the same zone.
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developers → say → zone
"These risks have to be properly studied and assessed.
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risks → have → ?
Unfortunately, they have not been," Gyawali said.
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Gyawali → say → ?
Retired Indian ambassador Shyam Saran, who served as the Indian prime minister's special envoy for climate change, says developers typically look at risks that could be triggered by their project, alongside environmental risks to it, and they appear safe.
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they → serve → it
"But if you do actually a cumulative environmental impact assessment of the whole river system," he says, "then a different picture emerges.
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picture → do → system
And the Trishuli river "is a really high risk area to build [hydropower] dams, says Austin Lord of the Stimson Center, who works on disaster risk reduction in the Himalayan region at the Stimson Center.
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who → build → Center
…and 35 more, not listed.
The Aporia
