After the unimaginable scale of Bhotekoshi flood disaster on August 26 struck four districts, the government sprang to action to tackle it. It mobilized personnel of three security organs along with local authorities. Helicopters owned by the Army and private companies flew over the affected areas for conducting rescue and relief works, ministers were quick to visit the disaster sites to take stock of the situation, and rescue workers were pressed hard into action in difficult areas.
However, the question many are raising now is whether the response from the government was quick and large enough to tackle the scale of disaster on that fateful day. Many accuse that the government failed to do so. The scale of disaster was too big as around 40 bridges along with major roads were swept away, key hydropower projects damaged, hundreds of people trapped inside tunnels and disaster cut off communities from getting basic amenities. After the severity and extent of the disaster became clear, the response needed to move quickly beyond the normal government practice and which must have become a full-scale government emergency operation.
Sadly, as many accuse, that did not happen quickly enough. One of the key failures appears in the mobilization of required expertise and equipment. The government overly relied on security forces. But a disaster that wreaked havoc on lengthy power tunnels, hydropower plants, collapsed infrastructure and huge debris needed a different kind of expertise, where the government appears to be lagging behind. High quality engineers, tunnel rescue specialists, divers as well as geologists and heavy equipment operators and experts of medical teams could have played a strong role to mitigate challenges. As Nepal is poorly equipped, help from outside the country becomes more than necessary.
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The reports that foreign rescue teams were ready to assist, but that the government took too long to issue permission to foreign teams is very troubling. In an emergency, time is a vital aspect for rescue which can determine whether someone is found alive or whether rescuers recover a body. If Nepal does not have the equipment or expertise required for a particular rescue, outside help should have been brought without any delay. It is a fact that no country can prepare for every possible disaster on its own. When lives are at stake the government’s responsibility is to use whatever expertise, equipment and assistance are available and get them where they are needed as quickly as possible.
In the meantime, the issue of rescuing people trapped inside hydropower tunnels exposed another inefficiency of the government. After several days, the government-mobilized forces failed to make any impact. Later, the government asked hydropower companies and project teams to step in. These teams without doubt know the tunnels, access points, machinery and underground layouts. Their involvement was clearly useful, but it also raises a broader question about disaster preparedness on the part of the government. The Bhotekoshi flood disaster has brought a major point to our notice. Expertise possessed by heavy equipment operators should already be built into the national emergency response system, rather than brought in only after a crisis has begun. The government’s real job is to make decisions, coordinate agencies and remove obstacles in rescue, relief and rehabilitation jobs.
Meanwhile, relief distribution has also raised questions about coordination. The government has promoted a single-door system, yet reports of uneven distribution suggest that the system is not working smoothly everywhere. Supplies can be sitting in one place while families elsewhere wait for food, medicine and other basic necessities. This has brought the government’s ‘Single-Door Policy’ into question.
The handling of the issues related to missing people and the dead have required the same sense of urgency. Once the scale of the disaster became known, authorities should have moved quickly to collect DNA samples from relatives of missing people and begin identification. For families waiting for news, days of uncertainty are deeply distressing. Identifying the dead quickly would at least give families the certainty of performing the final rites with dignity.
Then comes the question of making damaged roads operational. Damage to major highways and strategic routes could turn a regional disaster into a wider economic and humanitarian problem. These roads carry food, fuel, medicine and other essential supplies. With the festival of Dashain just around the corner, prolonged disruption could lead to shortages and higher prices well beyond the immediate flood-affected areas. Keeping those routes open should therefore be treated as part of the emergency response, not something to be dealt with later during reconstruction.
At present, the more important questions are much harder: How many people were rescued alive? How quickly did specialised teams arrive? How effectively were the tunnels searched? How quickly did relief reach worst-hit communities and victims? How many emergency routes were restored? How soon were the dead identified and returned to their families?
The right answers to the above questions are the measures that matter to the people caught in the disaster. For a family still waiting for a missing relative, a minister’s visit to the sites is not worth it. For someone without food or medicine, an official announcement offers little comfort if the supplies are still stranded on a destroyed road.
The Bhotekoshi disaster has exposed weaknesses in Nepal’s rapid disaster response system. The government should treat those weaknesses as a warning and address them before the next emergency. Disasters such as floods and landslides cannot always be prevented, but delays, poor coordination and inadequate preparation can be addressed. Nepal needs a response system that can act quickly when every hour can make the difference between life and death.
