Hit by deadly floods, Nepal renews push for Chinese data and early warnings

KATHMANDU, Aug 31:  Three months before a wall of water, mud and rock killed hundreds when it hurtled down a Himalayan valley bordering Nepal and China, experts and officials from both countries met in Kathmandu to discuss the risk of such disasters.

At the May 27 meeting in Nepal's capital, 10 officials from Nepal and about a dozen from China, including the Tibet region where the disaster struck, discussed strengthening cooperation to monitor and respond to floods, weather and glacier-related hazards, according to an agenda prepared by the Nepali side and seen by Reuters.

The participants called for joint risk-reduction measures, including inventories of glacial lakes and hazard mapping.

But two Nepali officials told Reuters they did not receive as much information as they wanted from China on glacier risks and water levels after the meeting and they feared insufficient data sharing could hamper their ability to anticipate and prepare for major disasters.

"What we actually wanted from them, and still want, is if there are early movements of glaciers and early movements around that area, we would want to know a bit early," said Sauhardra Joshi, a hydrologist at Nepal's Flood Forecasting Division, who was in the May meeting.

No officials or experts have blamed either side for the natural disaster, which will cost an estimated tenth of Nepal's annual economic output to recover from. Nepali officials say the priority is to deepen cooperation with China.

China's foreign ministry said the two sides have maintained "sound cooperation in the fields of meteorology, water resources and disaster prevention and mitigation".

"China will continue to strongly support Nepal's disaster relief efforts, strengthen cooperation in disaster prevention and mitigation, and safeguard the common interests of the two peoples," the ministry told Reuters in a statement.

Last week, the sudden collapse of a glacier on Nepal's Langtang mountain range into a valley that divides Tibet and Nepal set off a catastrophic flood that killed more than 900 people and nearly 5,000 are still missing on both sides of the border.

It is unclear what data �" if any �" China had before the disaster of the conditions of the glaciers in the area, especially those lying outside its borders.

"Detecting such failures before they occur is extremely difficult," Fan Xuanmei, director of the State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironment Protection at Chengdu University of Technology, told state-run China Daily.

Potential source areas are often above 5,000 metres, where conventional field monitoring is difficult. Satellite observations can be limited by snow and ice cover and steep terrain, while monitoring equipment has to operate in extreme cold and high-altitude conditions.

At the meeting in Kathmandu, the Chinese said they did not have the mandate to sign an agreement to meet Nepal's requests, asking for further discussions, said Binod Parajuli, another Nepal government hydrologist.�" REUTERS