Learning from disaster: ICIMOD convenes international experts following Rasuwa Gyirong flood

Photo: Jitendra Raj Bajracharya/ICIMOD

On 26 August 2026, a north-facing slope on the Langtang Lirung mountain in North-Central Nepal failed. Within minutes, bedrock collapse triggered an ice-rock avalanche that swept down the Bhote Koshi–Trishuli valley and across an international border as a wall of floodwater. Director General of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), Dr Pema Gyamtsho, has proposed the event be known by its trigger site, the Lirung ice-rock avalanche. The name poses an urgent question: how many more Lirungs are there, waiting to collapse from the glaciated peaks of the Hindu Kush Himalaya? 

To find answers to that question, ICIMOD and the Government of Nepal – with the support of the Embassy of Switzerland – are convening a high-level meeting with over 80 participants including international cryosphere experts, aid agency representatives, and government officials from Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Nepal and Pakistan, in Kathmandu, from 15–17 September 2026. They will be joined by a cohort of Swiss experts who managed a similar ice-rock avalanche in Blatten, Switzerland in 2025.

The stakes are more than national or regional; they are global. A hazard forming high in one country’s mountains can rapidly become another country’s emergency, especially for the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region, which is warming faster than the global average. Delegates began their reflections at the disaster site itself, before moving into two days of direct exchange: reconstructing what happened at the Lirung rockface and Rasuwa valley, learning from Switzerland’s account of the Blatten catastrophe, and comparing experiences from other similar events across the entire HKH region. 

The purpose is to learn from past disasters, identify precisely where monitoring, early warning, and response systems fall short and agree on what needs to change. There is no doubt that more disasters will occur, and it is clear the region needs to be better equipped to withstand them. The meeting outcome will culminate in a joint Action Plan on managing cascading mountain risks, identifying the highest-risk glaciated hotspots across the HKH, and the concrete steps needed to monitor them and warn people in time. 

On the final afternoon, resident ambassadors in Nepal, including those from China, Pakistan, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Norway, along with key development organisations, join a roundtable to share the results and discuss what international support can help deliver them.