At least 148 people have died and more than fifty are still missing in a series of flood and landslide events which hit Nepal driven by heavy rains which have fallen across the country since Friday 27 September 2024. The worst of the flooding has occurred in the densely populated Kathmandu Valley in the central part of the country, where 322 mm of rain fell within 24 hours between Friday and Saturday mornings, the largest amount of rain ever recorded within 24 hours in Nepal.
Thirty four people are known have died in Kathmandu, and at least 35 more in a series of landslides on the Prithvi Highway, outside the city, which buried two busses and several other vehicles. In the city Bhaktapur, 15 km to the east of Kathmandu, five people, including a pregnant woman and a four-year-old girl died when a house collapsed, and six people died when a landslide hit the All Nepal Football Association's training centre in Makwanpur.
The annual monsoon in Nepal claims a large number of lives each year, with at least 170 known to have died this year between the onset of the monsoon season in June and the onset of Friday's rains. However, this rainfall typically ends towards the middle of September. This year's extended monsoon is thought to have been caused by a low pressure system over India, in turn caused by this year's exceptionally high global temperatures. Late rains such as these bring with them additional problems, as by September the ground in lowlying areas of Nepal is often waterlogged, and the waters rivers and lakes high, if not actually overflowing. This means that even if the rains stop soon, their effects are likely to be felt for some time yet, with the waters in the Koshi River recorded as running at a rate of over 12 700 cubic metres per second, compared to a seasonal average of 4200 cubic metres per second. Such high flow rates on the Koshi River almost invariably lead to significant flood events in Bihar State, India.
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