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Bhote Koshi–Trishuli flood response
On 26 August 2026 a massive flash flood tore through Rasuwa, devastating communities and destroying roads, bridges, communications and critical infrastructure along the Bhote Koshi–Trishuli river system.
Kickoff
Sunday 30 August, 09:00 NPT
Link emailed once the platform is confirmed.
Why this one
Where a weekend actually helps.
Nepal’s responders and experts are already at work. Nepal Hackathon helps them draw on engineers, scientists, mappers, satellite data, AI, cloud infrastructure, funding and other resources from around the world — for the emergency now and the work that comes after.
Satellite scenes waiting to be turned into damage maps. Gauge readings, weather records and melt signals sitting in separate systems. Drone footage arriving faster than anyone can process it.
That work splits well across a lot of people and a short stretch of time, wherever they happen to be.
The corridor
In the news
What outlets are reporting.
Third-party coverage, refreshed hourly, newest first. These are the publishers’ words and figures — including casualty and missing counts — not ours, and we have not verified them. What this project can stand behind is on the situation ledger.
Last refreshed
At least five people missing as flash floods in Nepal sweep away housesAuthorities urge villagers to move to safer places after a river in the central part of the country bursts its banks.Al Jazeera · 11 Oct 16:06 UTC
DW News. . A landslide has triggered flash flooding in central Nepal. A major river has flooded in a valley and swept away homes and buildings. Dozens of people have been rescued, but several are still missing. #dwnews #nepal #floodingFacebook · 11 Oct 16:06 UTC
Homes and bridges swept away as fresh floods hit NepalNepal is still trying to recover from catastrophic floods that hit less than two months ago, leaving thousands dead and missing.BBC · 11 Oct 12:03 UTC
Flash Floods Sweep Away 40 Houses in Central NepalAround 35 to 40 houses were washed away by flash floods in Gorkha District, central Nepal on Sunday.Tempo.co English · 11 Oct 11:18 UTC
Buildings swept away as flash floods hit central NepalA flash flood has washed away houses, bridges and damaged a hydropower project along a river in central Nepal.BBC · 11 Oct 11:04 UTC
AERIAL FOOTAGE NG BAHA SA NEPAL Aerial footage released by the Nepali Army on Sunday, Oct. 11, showed a village in Gandaki province inundated after floodwaters tore through central Nepal. A dry landslide in Chumnubri village in Gorkha district, aboFacebook · 11 Oct 11:03 UTC
Residents evacuated after flash flooding destroys homes in NepalThe country is still recovering from a devastating flood along its border with China which left more than 1400 people dead and thousands of...Sky News · 11 Oct 09:14 UTC
Flash floods sweep away around 40 houses in central NepalFlash flood in Gorkha district caused widespread damage in Chumnubri and Dharche rural municipalities, sweeping away houses, bridges,...Anadolu Ajansı · 11 Oct 09:06 UTC
Nepal urges villagers to evacuate after landslide triggers floodResidents in north-central Nepal were evacuated on Sunday as flash flooding destroyed homes. A dry landslide in Gorkha district,...ABC News & Headlines – Australian Broadcasting Corporation · 11 Oct 06:54 UTC
Nepal urges villagers to evacuate after flood triggered by landslideNepali authorities urged villagers on Sunday to move to safer places after a flood in a river in the central part of the country swept away...The Economic Times · 11 Oct 05:38 UTC
What we could build
Five things worth building.
Starting points, not assignments. Some of this is already under way in Nepal, and the real projects get shaped at the kickoff by the teams doing the work. Each one names what could realistically come out of a weekend on it.
- 01
Alert and monitoring
The signals mostly exist already — weather and melt anomalies, snow loss, river gauges, remote sensing — but they sit in separate systems and nobody has put them together. Combine them and test whether they flag dangerous conditions earlier than what is in place today.
Weekend outputBacktest a recent event and prototype a simple risk score, dashboard or API.
Skills that fit
Data and GIS · Climate science · AI and engineering
Problem Lead announced at kickoff
- 02
Danger zones
Work out what is actually downstream of an event: settlements, roads, bridges, schools, health facilities, hydropower, trekking routes. Much of it is mapped, but in separate places and at different times, so no one view shows what is at stake.
Weekend outputAn integrated map for one priority area, and a list of the important missing data.
Skills that fit
Data and GIS · Drones and remote sensing · Climate science
Problem Lead announced at kickoff
- 03
Climate-warming risk
Find where glaciers, glacial lakes, snow cover and terrain are changing fastest, and therefore where closer monitoring is worth the effort. Nepal and ICIMOD hold the expertise and much of the data; outside teams can bring newer imagery and the compute to compare it at scale.
Longer term outputAn updated risk-monitoring layer, or an expert-review watchlist.
Skills that fit
Climate science · Drones and remote sensing · Cloud and compute
Problem Lead announced at kickoff
- 04
Risk, inequality and development
The same flood does very different damage depending on road access, communications, healthcare and how quickly a community can recover. Census, infrastructure and geographic data already exist to show that — and to show where investment would change the most.
Longer term outputA pilot resilience or investment-priority map for one region.
Skills that fit
Data and GIS · Economics · Product and design
Problem Lead announced at kickoff
- 05
Drones and remote sensing
Drone teams in Nepal are already flying. The bottleneck is what happens next: turning footage into damage maps, blocked-road assessments and searchable imagery fast enough to matter. That part can be done from anywhere, at scale.
Weekend outputDemonstrate a drone-to-map workflow, and identify the technical, compute or equipment support local operators need.
Skills that fit
Drones and remote sensing · AI and engineering · Cloud and compute
Problem Lead announced at kickoff
- 06
Public health and continuity of care
A disaster creates injuries and shortages now, and exposes what was already thin: access to healthcare, medicines, water, sanitation and emergency transport. Nepal has strong health-emergency institutions. The work is to add capacity to them, not to stand up something parallel.
Weekend outputSupport an existing Nepal-led coordination effort with a data, matching or visualisation tool — not a parallel system. Or prototype an access and referral layer showing which communities lose trauma, maternal and medicine access when a road, bridge or facility fails.
Skills that fit
Data and GIS · Product and design · AI and engineering
Problem Lead announced at kickoff
- 07
Environment, watersheds and recovery
A flood on this scale reshapes rivers, moves enormous volumes of sediment, damages forest and farmland, contaminates water and creates new erosion and landslide risk. How roads, bridges and settlements are rebuilt then either reduces the next one or repeats it.
Longer term outputWork with Nepal-based environmental scientists, engineers and government experts to establish what damage has occurred, what secondary risks follow, and where rebuilding could reduce future risk rather than recreate it.
Skills that fit
Climate science · Data and GIS · Economics
Problem Lead announced at kickoff
The weekend
Three days. One of them is the handover.
It starts with listening: Nepal-based teams brief everyone before a line of code gets written. Here is the shape of it, and when the kickoff lands where you are.
- 01
Kickoff
Saturday evening PT / Sunday morning NPT
Nepal-based teams brief everyone on the situation, what is already under way, and the areas where help would make a difference. Teams form around those requests. Roughly ninety minutes.
- 02
Build
Sunday
Build, map, analyse. Short expert briefings and checkpoints through the day keep teams pointed at something achievable rather than something impressive.
- 03
Hand over
The following week
Nepal-side owners review what was made and decide what should continue. The strongest projects get connected to thirty days of funding, technology or technical support.
Kickoff, where you are
- Kathmandu09:00Sunday 30 August
- Delhi08:45Sunday 30 August
- Singapore11:15Sunday 30 August
- London04:15Sunday 30 August
- Berlin05:15Sunday 30 August
- New York23:15Saturday 29 August
- San Francisco20:15Saturday 29 August
- Sydney13:15Sunday 30 August
After the weekend
The hackathon is not the outcome.
What we are trying to produce is support that is still there in two years, when the attention has gone and the work has not.
72 hours
Publish what was produced, the data sources behind it, the known limitations, and clear ways for more people to help.
30 days
Keep the projects Nepal partners want to carry forward alive, with the support they ask for.
90 days
Pilot the strongest tools with the people and institutions who would actually use them.
Beyond
Maintain a network that responders, researchers and technologists in Nepal can call on for talent, technology and funding — including when the news has moved on.