Nepal’s devastating flood exposes the risks of resettling disaster survivors

KHALTE, Nepal (AP) — When the flood came, Chheku Lama ran uphill, shouting for people to flee. A group followed him, but none survived, he said.

Lama's Khalte village in Nepal’s Rasuwa district had been set up as a temporary settlement after a 2015 earthquake destroyed nearby villages. But it offered little protection from floods, with homes clustered along the Trishuli River in a narrow valley.

When the floodwaters surged through on Aug. 26, residents had few routes to escape. At least 375 people were reported missing, according to residents. The village was wiped out.

Nepal is still recovering from the devastating floods that killed more than 1,400 people and left thousands missing in its mountainous border region with China. Another flash flood in north-central Nepal last week left at least five people missing.

Over the past decade, tens of thousands of people in Nepal have been displaced by earthquakes, landslides and floods, only to face new risks in temporary settlements built in vulnerable areas. Khalte’s destruction highlights those dangers. Survivors say the government must go beyond emergency relief and temporary shelter to provide safe, permanent places where displaced people can rebuild their lives.

The 2015 earthquake, which killed nearly 9,000 people nationwide, destroyed villages where many families had lived for generations. Under a government relocation plan, about 257 vulnerable households were moved to Khalte, which geological assessments later classified as a “red zone” because of landslide and avalanche risks.

Bam Bahadur Tamang, a Khalte resident now living in a government relief center, said he and many others had opposed the decision to resettle them there but they were eventually forced to move. He said any new relocation must account for both safety and access to basic services.

“Wherever the government resettles us now, it must first ensure that the place is safe,” he said. “We are not cattle to be moved from one place to another.”

Tamang’s worries point to a challenge that extends beyond finding safe ground. Displaced families also need access to schools, healthcare, roads and livelihoods if a temporary settlement is to become a viable home.

Nepal's government says it plans to build a new city for flood victims, with industries, hospitals and schools, and that displaced residents would not be sent back to settlements destroyed by the flood. It is also considering involving private developers in reconstruction, including a model in which they build homes in cooperation with landowners.

Dharam Raj Uprety, chief executive of Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, said the government was identifying land for settlements in safe areas. Experts would assess land use, and flood-prone areas could be declared uninhabitable, he said. The government could also convert vulnerable riverbanks into forest land and build homes on safer ground.

Uprety stressed, however, that agencies responsible for infrastructure and urban planning need to coordinate more closely.

“The disaster authority cannot do all of that work itself. Its role is largely to coordinate and create an environment in which other agencies incorporate disaster risk into their planning,” he said.

Nepal has previously taken steps to reduce flood risks, including river monitoring, early-warning systems and community preparedness. But its remote mountain valleys remain at risk of sudden floods caused by landslides and glacial lake outbursts.

Scientists warn that rising temperatures and increasingly unstable mountain landscapes make better monitoring and stronger early-warning systems ever more important for Nepal.

For Khalte’s survivors the question of where to rebuild remains unresolved. Many are reluctant to return to places where they lost family members, saying a new relocation plan may do little to reassure them.

Norchi Ghale survived both the 2015 earthquake and the August floods, but suffered devastating losses, losing his father in the earthquake and his mother and wife in the floods.

Before the flood, he owned a small plot of farmland in Khalte, where he raised cattle that provided his family’s main source of income. When he recently returned, he could no longer recognize where anything had once stood.

“I could not even trace where things used to be, just like my future now. I don’t know where I will go or how I will raise my children," he said.

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Saaliq reported from New Delhi.

Mangale Tamang, who survived the Nepal's 2015 earthquake and the flash floods in August this year, stands at a temporary holding center in Nepal's Nuwakot district, Sept. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

Zyazong Tamang, right, and his wife, Nyangsal Tamang, who survived the Nepal's 2015 earthquake and the flash floods in August this year, pose for a photograph at a temporary holding center in Nepal's Nuwakot district, Sept. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

Amir Tamang, a resident of Khalte village, destroyed in the flash floods in August this year, shows a photograph of the village on a phone screen at a temporary holding center in Nepal's Nuwakot district, Oct. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

Survivors of the flash floods in Nepal in August this year wait to receive clothing for their children at a temporary holding center in Nepal's Nuwakot district, Sept. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

This combination of six posed photographs shows, clockwise from top left, Birbal Tamang, Nima Choying Tamang, Kancha Ghale, Norchi Ghale, Buddha Tamang, and Chheku Lama, all survivors of Nepal's 2015 earthquake and the flash floods in August this year, in Nepal's Nuwakot district, Sept. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

JERUSALEM (AP) — No commercial goods have entered the Gaza Strip for two days, Israeli authorities said Thursday, blaming the suspension on merchants angered by taxes imposed by Hamas — a claim that Palestinian importers deny.

The halt to commercial shipments, including fruit and winter clothing, cuts off a key source of food and other critical supplies as fears grow about procuring supplies needed to get through winter in the territory.

The move stands to immediately reduce Gaza's supplies, because the closed-off territory is completely reliant on whatever goods Israel allows in through border crossings.

Aid groups generally bring in staples such as flour, while merchants import more perishable foods like fruits and meat, according to data released earlier this year by COGAT, the Israeli military body that oversees humanitarian affairs in Gaza.

The suspension is raising fears about affordability, with humanitarian workers saying a combination of aid and a robust commercial market is needed to keep prices under control.

“The humanitarian sector on its own cannot meet the needs of all the people,” said Shaina Low, a spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council, an aid group. “The markets need to be functioning.”

COGAT announced the suspension of commercial shipments Wednesday. Its deputy spokesperson, Lt. Daniel Kantorovich, said the agency was acting on a decision made by Palestinian merchants a day earlier and could reverse it at their behest.

“We were prepared to coordinate the entry of their trucks as usual, but the vendors informed us that they were cancelling the coordination due to Hamas’s taxation mechanism and threats against them,” Kantorovich said. “The merchants don’t want to bring goods into Gaza.”

The world’s leading authority on food insecurity reported earlier this year that conditions in Gaza had improved since famine was declared in the territory in August 2025, but were still at crisis levels. Most families in the war-battered enclave weren’t getting nearly enough to eat, said the report, adding that “even small disruptions to humanitarian access could rapidly reverse recent gains.”

Merchants in Gaza coordinate directly with vendors outside the territory, whose shipments are examined by Israel's military before entering Gaza.

In announcing the measure, COGAT claimed to be communicating a decision made by local merchants in Gaza who had grown tired of Hamas taxing their trucks and threatening them. Israel has long accused the militant group of levying fees on imports to fund its operations.

COGAT said no private-sector vendors had attempted to import goods to Gaza since the merchants alerted Israel on Tuesday.

But the head of Gaza’s private truckers union, Nahed Sheheiber, disputed Israel's account, saying they were the ones who had made the decision.

“The merchants are not the ones who stopped the shipments,” he said. “The Israeli coordinator is claiming that Gaza’s merchants are responsible, but the truth is that the Israelis are the ones who imposed the restrictions.”

Following COGAT's announcement, Sheheiber's union met with Gaza's Ministry of Economy to express concern and say Israel was citing fees levied by the ministry as a pretext to cut off commercial goods.

The ministry had been asking merchants to pay 10,000 shekels (about $3,226) per truck entering Gaza, Sheheiber said. At the meeting, ministry Undersecretary Khaled Al-Raqab told the union that the amount was not a tax, but rather a donation sought by the ministry to help pay civil servants in the strip.

It was not clear from the COGAT announcement if aid agencies would be allowed to increase shipments into Gaza to compensate for the loss in commercial goods.

The agency claimed that Gaza's population — of roughly 2 million people — required approximately 250 truckloads of goods each day. That's far below the minimum of 600 trucks a day stipulated by a ceasefire brokered by the U.S. a year ago.

The war started when Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people on Oct. 7, 2023, and took 251 hostages. Israel responded with a massive bombardment and a ground invasion that has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

That includes over 1,400 Palestinians killed since the ceasefire took effect, the ministry says. Sporadic attacks have killed five Israeli soldiers in Gaza in the same period.

The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, maintains detailed records and is seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. It does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its toll but says women and children make up around half the dead.

Mroue reported from Beirut.

Palestinians walk through a market in the Al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza City on Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians walk through a market in the Al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza City on Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)