Statement in Solidarity with the People of Nepal

On the morning of 26 August a slab of glacier, and the rock beneath it, broke from the north face of Langtang Lirung and fell more than a kilometre into the Lhende valley in Tibet. What fell was essentially turned to liquid by the drop. The flood ran a hundred kilometres down the Bhote Koshi and the Trishuli, broke through the Rasuwagadhi crossing, and struck village after village in Rasuwa and Nuwakot. The water was driven with such force that flooding ran for kilometres upstream, as well.

Around 1,252 at the time of writing are confirmed dead in Nepal and 21 in Tibet; the latest figures say 4,216 are missing, among them some 900 workers from the hydropower sites strung along the valley. Heroic efforts from rescuers working in difficult, drenched, muddy conditions have so far reportedly saved 11,993 people, with significant relief aid from China.

Most of those lost were people living on low income: farmers, porters, hotel staff, and dam labourers living in camps on the riverbank because that is where the work was.

To the Nepali community in Britain, in Aldershot and Ashford and Plumstead and beyond, so many of you the families of Gurkhas this country was quick to send to war and slow to pay: we see your grief and we grieve with you.

The NRNA UK appeal is open and we urge anyone reading this appeal to give; their president lost relatives in this flood.

Give to the NRNA UK Nepal flood appeal

We cannot say today that climate change caused the collapse only because the science is not yet done; what we can say is that it seems patently obvious. After all, permafrost is the glue that holds high slopes together, it is thawing across the Himalaya (especially after this record-breaking summer), and the IPCC says with high confidence that collapses of this kind are becoming more frequent.

Nepal put less than 0.1% of the carbon into the air that is thawing its glaciers.

Britain put 4 to 5% there depending on how you make the estimate - from one per cent of the world’s people, and grew rich doing it. Not everyone shared in that wealth, of course; a few within Britain drove it - a few within Britain grew powerful from it.

The government’s answer is £5 million and a consular team for British tourists. Set this against the backdrop of Nepal having upcoming debt repayments and simultaneously needing to spend on recovery and relief today.

We ask this of the British government: pay its Loss and Damage pledge in full, now, and use Britain’s seat at the World Bank and IMF to suspend Nepal’s debt service for the length of the recovery.