Now I weep: After decades working with Nepal, I see the root of its disaster ignored

August 30, 2026 — 3:30pm

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Wednesday was just another day at Adara, the global humanitarian group I founded 28 years ago. The team in our Sydney-based “for purpose” corporate advisory firm, generating revenue for our work with people in poverty, was producing financial and commercial advice to significant Australian organisations. Our development teams in Sydney, Uganda and Nepal were working on maternal newborn health and remote education services. Then our phones began pinging.

Messages came from Pralhad Dhakal, director of our Nepal operations. He had just landed back in Kathmandu from our most remote project sites in the country’s far west. His family lives in Nuwakot, the worst-hit region of the sudden floods, where we have been working for many years. He was just off a call from his sister as she fled to the mountains. He was worried about his elderly father, who lives near the Trishuli River. Yet still doing his job – checking in on his staff, their families and the communities we work with. Risk assessment. Staff assessment. Damage assessment. Leadership.

As we now know, a giant chunk of Himalayan glacier had broken off and plummeted thousands of feet, triggering a wall of water, mud and ice that swept into the Bhote Koshi and Trishuli rivers, which rose by up to nine metres in 30 minutes and poured into Nepal. Flooding ripped into the Nuwakot........

© The Age