Nepal PM Shah tells UN Assembly flood killed 1,400 people

Nepal's Prime Minister Balendra Shah told the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday that a glacial flood killed at least 1,400 people in his country, and he called the disaster a warning the world has not heard. Shah said recovery and reconstruction needs were estimated at about 10% of gross domestic product, and he asked for grant-based international support rather than loans to rebuild roads, bridges, schools and homes.

Shah's address carries weight because it puts a national cost on a disaster that scientists link to warming, and because it tests whether the United Nations' Fund for responding to Loss and Damage can move money fast. The flood struck four weeks before his speech, and search operations were still running with more than 6,000 people missing. Shah said many of them may never be found, which sharpens the pressure on the funding system he is challenging.

What Shah told the Assembly

On 26 August, a 'tsunami' of water, mud and boulders swept through the Rasuwa region of Nepal, killing more than 1,400 people and leaving about 6,000 more missing, Nature reports. International scientists have connected melting permafrost caused by climate change, linked to burning coal, oil and gas, to the instability of the glacier, which partly collapsed and triggered the flood. The chain runs from a failing slope to an avalanche of rock and ice that melts into a debris flow carrying sediment downstream.theguardian.com

Shah, 36, a former rapper and engineer, said Nepal contributed less than one-tenth of 1% of the heat-trapping gases behind climate change, and Nature puts Nepal's share of global carbon emissions at 0.01%. Over the past 75 years, the United States has emitted about 1,500 times more carbon than Nepal, according to the Global Carbon Project. Shah told the Assembly that his country did not create the crisis yet is paying a colossal price for it.

The government estimates reconstruction will cost almost US$5 billion, roughly 10% of Nepal's gross domestic product, Nature reports, and Shah repeated the 10% figure at the Assembly. Nepal's economy cannot absorb that alone, and Shah argued that vulnerable countries should not be forced into additional debt to rebuild from catastrophic climate events. He said the answer cannot simply be another mega loan or a patchwork of small grants, and asked for adequate grant-based support.

How the flood killed 1,400

The Rasuwa disaster marks the first big operational test for the United Nations' Fund for responding to Loss and Damage, established in 2022 to help climate-vulnerable countries cover losses of jobs, lives and infrastructure. Five days after the floods, Nepal's government formally asked the fund for urgent financial support, and the fund replied that Nepal's request would be approached with urgency, compassion and careful consideration. One month on, no arrangement for Nepal has been announced.

The fund has no rapid-access pathway for a country to apply outside scheduled application windows, and it has not yet set out a framework for weighing the role of climate change in a disaster. Nature's author, an environmental scientist who has studied the Himalayas for more than 20 years, writes that attribution of cascading disasters takes time and that delaying support while evidence is assembled could deepen human and economic losses.

Where the reconstruction money comes from

Nepal's foreign minister, Shisir Khanal, said at the UN climate summit that what happened in Nepal is not an isolated disaster but a preview of what awaits many vulnerable nations. Khanal said Nepal had written a joint letter to the loss and damage fund requesting $20m in climate-related damages. The World Bank made up to $170m in emergency financing available, and the United States announced $31m in aid, bringing its total help to $36m.

Shah asked for closer cooperation between Nepal, India and China and proposed a Himalayan climate resilience mechanism to share satellite data, monitor dangerous glacial lakes, strengthen early-warning systems and coordinate cross-border assistance. He said the Hindu Kush-Himalaya region supports nearly two billion people with water, ecosystems, agriculture and livelihoods, and he thanked India and China for prompt assistance after the disaster.news.un.org

What happens next at the fund

Shah did not ask for a specific aid amount but called the financial aid system inadequate and too bureaucratic. He said the flood swept away roads, bridges, schools, homes and livelihoods, interrupting Nepal's development progress, and he urged that climate justice not remain a phrase in United Nations documents. Shah also said Nepal has restored forests covering nearly half of its territory.

The next step sits with the loss and damage fund, which Nature argues should first provide an immediate emergency allocation for humanitarian costs through a streamlined assessment of need, then finance reconstruction within a few years on a fuller assessment. The fund, set up in 2022, still needs a framework for weighing climate influence in each disaster before another catastrophe tests it.