Aching from Afar: Reflections on Nepal’s Flash Floods
The following article was written in the end of August 2026, shortly after devastating floods struck northern Nepal. I wrote it mostly to communicate my profound sadness for the victims of this disaster, and to reflect on how the disappearance of Nepali people, villages, and generations of connection to the land leaves the rest of the world diminished, too.
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“There is no pang like that for those we love” - Emily Dickinson
Some places become dear to us long before we ever get the chance to see them for ourselves. Nepal is one of those places for me. I have a few friends from Nepal, with whom I have shared my aspirations of one day exploring its remote villages and Himalayan peaks. In college, I read avidly about the country’s history, learned some of the Nepali language, and spoke with teachers who knew it well: small actions that ultimately gave me a new awareness of (and perhaps even a sense of loyalty to) that mountainous part of the globe. Even an ocean away, just learning about Nepalese culture gave the country a special place in my heart.
And so, upon hearing the recent news of glacial collapse and catastrophic flooding along the Nepal-Tibet border, I was hit with a wave of grief. In just a matter of hours, the places I had watched from afar were suddenly caked in silt. Villages in Rasuwa were buried under debris, while the bridges that connected them were swept away. People trudged through concrete-like mud in search of their loved ones. Each news story shocked me so profoundly before slowly sinking in as the truth. More agonizing still are the thousands of people who remain missing and the steadily rising death toll in that area.
Last night, with my eyes closed, I pictured that montage of missing faces I had seen on the screen — mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, people waiting to become parents, workers trapped in hydropower sites. I knelt down and offered a very personal prayer, the intimacy of which even took me by surprise. At that moment, the distinction between a close friend and a stranger abroad mattered very little; every degree of separation between me and those missing seemed to collapse. I hate to imagine the worst. Yet the immediacy of their absence was overwhelming, leaving a lump in my throat.
It is difficult, too, to imagine what was once inscribed in those mountainous villages and towns: layers upon layers of ritual, memory, and human attachment to the land, now swept blank by the water. What hidden transcripts of the past lived in those houses? I know that in the coming years, historians will keep uncovering new dimensions of what has disappeared. There is sadness in that as well: knowing how much of the loss we cannot yet understand.
A couple of days ago, I read an article in the Kathmandu Post in which the author described how his childhood village, Sole, had been destroyed by the floods. His devastation was palpable through the text. It is strange to compare the normalcy of my life to his, to feel time passing in my room through the wear and tear of my favorite t-shirt. I recognize how lucky I am that, here, I can watch things erode gradually rather than see them pummeled into nothingness in a single instant. Tragically, the difference between our circumstances lies in mere coordinates. The simplest geography.
It does not seem to matter that my home in the US is an ocean away from the Nepal-Tibet border. Who can blot out this disaster’s connection to people everywhere? To take these Himalayan villages and people away leaves the whole world emptier than before. Even without hearing the news, I feel that something in the atmosphere has changed. It’s as if some part of us can sense what is missing before we know that it is truly gone.
