In this episode of the International Risk Podcast, host Dominic Bowen is joined by Kirtan Pandit, conservation researcher and co-founder of GeoSutra, an environmental intelligence company whose team deployed drones within 24 hours of the catastrophic Nepal flood to carry out rapid damage assessments in Nuwakot district. Kirtan shares a firsthand account of the disaster response, drawing on his work using drones to assess and deliver aid to flood affected communities, and explains why this event, and Nepal’s growing exposure to glacial hazards, must be understood as a climate risk issue with global implications.

We discuss:

• What triggered the flood, and how a glacier collapse near the Nepal-China border unleashed one of the deadliest disasters in Nepal’s modern history
• How GeoSutra’s team accessed the affected area and used drones to assess damage and deliver aid across a river with no remaining crossings
• The scale of destruction to critical infrastructure, including roads, bridges, the Rasuwagadhi border crossing and hydropower stations
• The ongoing search for workers trapped in a hydropower tunnel and the mounting challenge of managing the dead
• Why the flood is directly linked to climate change and global warming’s effect on Himalayan glaciers
• The limitations of Nepal’s current early warning systems and what stronger, climate resilient infrastructure would require
• Why Nepal and other low emitting mountainous nations are demanding climate finance and loss and damage funding as grants rather than loans
• What this disaster reveals about the growing risk facing mountain communities across the Himalayas and beyond

The International Risk Podcast brings you conversations with global experts, frontline practitioners and senior decision makers who are shaping how we understand and respond to international risk. From geopolitical instability and organised crime to cybersecurity threats and hybrid warfare, each episode explores the forces transforming our world and what smart leaders must do to navigate them. Whether you’re a board member, policymaker or risk professional, The International Risk Podcast delivers actionable insights, sharp analysis and real world stories that matter.

Dominic Bowen hosts The International Risk Podcast and is Europe’s leading expert on international risk and crisis management. As Head of Strategic Advisory and Partner at one of Europe’s leading risk management consulting firms, Dominic advises CEOs, boards and senior executives across the continent on how to prepare for uncertainty and act with intent. He has spent decades working in war zones, advising multinational companies and supporting Europe’s business leaders. Dominic is the go-to business advisor for leaders navigating risk, crisis and strategy, trusted for his clarity, calmness under pressure and ability to turn volatility into competitive advantage. Dominic equips today’s business leaders with the insight and confidence to lead through disruption and deliver sustained strategic advantage.

Episode Transcript

The International Risk Podcast

Dominic Bowen:
Just a few days ago, a massive glacier collapsed and unleashed one of the most destructive floods in Nepal’s modern history. So far, 955 people have been killed, and there are more than 4,500 people still missing. This is a stark preview of the growing risks of climate change and what it poses to different communities around the world.

I’m Dominic Bowen. I’m host of the International Risk Podcast, where we unpack the topics that really matter. Today, we’re joined by Kirtan Pandit. He’s the co-founder of GeoSutra, an environmental intelligence company whose team deployed drones within 24 hours of the flood and carried out rapid damage assessments along the flood corridor.

He’s a conservation researcher by training, and Kirtan brings both a scientific eye and on-the-ground insights into the scale of the disaster in Nepal.

Good time. Welcome to the International Risk Podcast.

Kirtan Pandit:
Thank you so much. Thank you for the opportunity to share what I saw on the ground and what my team and I have been doing now in the flood-affected areas. Thank you so much.

Dominic Bowen:
So, Kirtan, first of all, are you, your family, your friends — is everyone safe? And tell us, how have you and people around you been affected by what happened this week?

Kirtan Pandit:
Yeah. So, first of all, my heart goes to all the people and all the families affected by this flood. My family and I are very safe. We are very far from the flood-affected areas.

What we did was coordinate with a group of people so that we could go and conduct a rapid risk assessment of the affected area. We travelled to the site, and the place is called Nuwakot in the local district. We arrived there at around midnight on the day of the flood.

Because it was nighttime, we couldn’t fly our drones to see what had actually happened and what destruction had been caused by the flood. So we waited until the next day. On the first day of the flood, we consulted with people about how the flood came, how it had caused damage, and what the primary affected areas were.

As we discussed with the local people there, we found that the flood came in a matter of seconds. There was nothing they could do, and they were not expecting it at all. They were very panicked, and all of the people there were in fear.

Before we approached the area, we found that the flood was triggered by an ice-rock avalanche in the upper part of the mountainous area from Nuwakot district.

Dominic Bowen:
And we’ll cut — I’d love to unpack that with you. But I’d really like to understand from you, Kirtan, how did you find out about the flood? And as you went from Kathmandu towards the areas most affected, tell us, what were you seeing?

Kirtan Pandit:
So, before we found out about the flood, it happened during the daytime, around 10 or 11 in the morning. We were just waiting for someone who was going there.

Our group, Hami Nepal, was searching for someone who could assess the risk and damage through drones. They called many people who had drones and could identify the risk and damage caused by the flood.

They posted a story on Instagram, and my colleague, Bimanshu Kapali, who is also co-founder of GeoSutra, and I reached out to Hami Nepal. We travelled with them to the affected site.

That was the scenario. We got access to the site, and as we travelled, the Hami Nepal team had also tried to travel with some relief and aid for the affected people. We were there with our drones.

We assessed the affected areas through drones the day after. When we saw the images, we were totally shocked by the devastation caused by the flood. The people were very panicked and very fearful that the flood might come again or affect them again. There was a high level of fear in that area, and the people were very much in distress.

Dominic Bowen:
And tell us, so we can understand the situation. We understand now that many scientists believe it was actually a glacial collapse higher in the mountains that created this catastrophic flood, which occurred many kilometres downstream.

Can you tell us, do we have any more insights now about what actually caused this massive wall of water to come down?

Kirtan Pandit:
Yeah. So, as I already said, it was triggered by an ice avalanche. The avalanche hit the lake and the lake outburst. That happened to be the main reason for the flood.

This has not only affected the Nepal side; it also affected the Tibet side in China.

From what we saw, the main reason is climate change and global warming. Mountains and glaciers were not made just months ago. They have existed in Nepal and Tibet from their origin.

This didn’t just happen overnight. It was completely connected to global warming and climate change.

The ice melted and formed into a mass of rock, and the avalanche was created. It shattered the glacial lake, which had formed at the site, and caused it to outburst, creating this vast flood.

Dominic Bowen:
And so, when you’re in the area, whether you’re travelling in vehicles or on foot, or doing the work with your drones, can you tell us about the damage?

I think most of us have now seen lots of footage of the initial floodwater going through. But a few days later, what’s the scale of the damage? What’s being hit hardest, and what are the biggest risks facing communities?

Kirtan Pandit:
I will explain this from the first day.

The first day, we consulted with the locals, and on the second day, in the morning, we assessed the area through drones.

We saw the devastation caused by the flood, and we found that there were people trapped on the other side of the river because the main connection between the people across the river was a bridge. The bridge was also destroyed by the flood.

So what we did was use the drones to communicate with people on the other side of the river. They were seeking help, aid and relief from our side.

As soon as we found that there were people on the other side of the river, we informed the Nepal Police and Armed Police Force, which are the primary security forces of Nepal. They were already doing various rescue operations, so we informed them, and they provided relief and rescue assistance.

Another team using drones lifted relief items and transferred aid materials to the other side of the river.

We conducted the risk assessment and needs assessment of the area, but basically the road to Rasuwa was completely blocked. The road was completely damaged, so we couldn’t access it by vehicle.

On the Rasuwa side, the Nepal Army has been conducting rescue operations by helicopter. It was completely blocked for us, so we conducted the risk and needs assessment through alternative routes. But still, the area was very much inaccessible for us.

Yesterday, an alternative road was made, and people have been travelling around 12 to 13 hours by road to provide aid and relief to the people affected in Rasuwa district.

There are still relief and rescue operations happening. As far as I am informed, there are people who have been trapped in a tunnel of a hydropower station. Experts from India and China have been involved in the rescue operation, and the tunnel is being dug out.

There was an explosion to open the opening of the tunnel, so the rescue operation has been carried out with the help of experts from India and China.

Dominic Bowen:
I wanted to ask you about that because the news coming out of Nepal today is that there are still hundreds of missing workers at hydropower projects. The fear is that hundreds of people are blocked in tunnels by mud and debris, and the rescue efforts are ongoing. There’s this hope that people can be rescued from these tunnels.

Can you talk to us about the critical infrastructure? What’s happened to the roads, the bridges, these hydropower stations, and the border crossing between Nepal and Tibet?

What does this mean for how the region is going to be able to continue functioning in the short and even medium term?

Kirtan Pandit:
The damage happened because the road was very much on the bank of the river. The road access has been blocked because it was on the bank of the river, and the flood swept away everything that was on its banks.

The hydropower station was also very close to the river.

During our talk with a power worker who has been working in the hydropower tunnel, he said that if the flood had been triggered around 11 or 12 at night rather than at 8 or 9 in the morning, it would have been more devastating because it was their working time.

He said we were very lucky that it happened in the morning, since they were working inside the tunnel and could run. So this is the reason why there may be many people who are trapped inside the tunnel.

Dominic Bowen:
And I’d like to ask you about the current search and recovery efforts. But I’ll just remind our listeners that if they prefer to watch the International Risk Podcast, we’re always available on YouTube.

So please do go to YouTube, search for the International Risk Podcast, and you’ll find all our content there. And if you find these episodes informative and helpful, please also consider sharing them with your family or with a colleague. This really is important for us to be able to share our content as widely as possible.

But as there are still nearly four and a half thousand people who are unaccounted for, talk to us about the current search and recovery efforts.

Your company and your team’s efforts with the drones have obviously been really critical. But talk to us about what’s happening today with the search and recovery efforts. What does it look like on the ground?

Kirtan Pandit:
Currently, the rescue operation has started in the tunnel area, particularly because there may be a maximum number of people in the tunnel.

Regarding the rescue operations, they have already begun. Relief and other essential materials are being provided to people who may still be alive and who may be rescued.

Currently, dead bodies are being identified. From what we have been informed, dead bodies have travelled through the flood and have been collected in a district about 100 miles from the location.

The dead bodies are being managed so that they can be identified and can eventually reach their families.

So the current situation is that the dead bodies need to be managed in Makwanpur district and Rasuwa district, as far as I am informed.

On the third day of the flood, dead bodies were being taken out of houses and placed in some locations. But the main concern was that if they remained unmanaged, they could create serious problems, including smell, decomposition and the spread of diseases.

So the main problem and main issue now is the management of the dead bodies.

Regarding rescue operations, work is continuing in other parts, but it is now more focused on the tunnel side because we need to save people who may still be alive.

So the rescue operations are currently focused there.

Dominic Bowen:
And your drones — you’ve been mapping and assessing the damage and looking at the risks. Talk to us.

Obviously, we’ve heard so much about drones over the last few years in their military application. Ukraine has been defending itself against Russia’s illegal invasion, and drones have played a huge part in Ukraine’s defence.

But this is obviously using drones for a very different purpose.

I remember responding to the large earthquake in Nepal in 2015. I was one of the first international responders on the ground after the earthquake. We didn’t have the drone technology.

I remember contacting headquarters. We had hundreds of nurses and doctors being flown in to support the health response, but we were hiking up and down these mountains and through these valleys trying to reach remote communities.

I remember pleading with headquarters: if we could get some drone technology to assess communities, rather than losing hours every day just hiking up and down valleys.

But talk to us about what’s available today. Talk to us about what you’re seeing with the drones that otherwise you would take days or weeks to assess from the ground.

Kirtan Pandit:
Drones have been a very essential part of it, apart from what we are doing. If we had to do it from the ground, it would take around three or more days to reach the people on the other side.

So drones have been very helpful for us. They have also been providing aid to people and relief to people who are not accessible through roads and other means.

When we’re talking about the Ukraine case, the military drone side has a different purpose. Our drones have been used for risk and rescue operations and for providing aid.

Through drones, it has been very easy for us to reach people as soon as possible, because at this time people are panicking a lot and they need a lot of aid to stay alive.

I do think drones are an innovative and important part of what we are doing. They are very useful for us, and without them, we wouldn’t have been able to do such a thing in such a short time.

Dominic Bowen:
And you’re obviously speaking to residents who have been directly affected by the floods as part of your work.

Can you tell us how prepared, or maybe even unprepared, different people have felt when you’ve been speaking with them? And are there any stories that really resonated with you and your team that have really stuck in your memory?

Kirtan Pandit:
Yeah, I have a story.

There is a place called Devighat. The residents of Devighat were informed from the upper side of the area, from Rasuwa district, that a flood was coming down from a very high-altitude area.

The people from Devighat took their essentials with them and reached a higher elevation.

The timeframe was about — the people thought they had been very well informed that the flood was coming and that they should be safe.

They were given information that the flood was coming, but some people neglected it and thought that it was similar to a flood that had happened a few times before, which had just brought out some containers from the border side.

This means that we should be very much ready to face the fact that a flood could come at any time, wherever you are.

If you’re living beside a river, on the bank of a river, or on the side of a river, you should be informed about what may happen.

So it’s not about negligence or simple negligence that costs someone’s life. That was a story I heard.

People were very fearful that another flood could hit them at any time. They know they need to be safe.

They were very much triggered. There was very much fear on their faces, and we could clearly see that they weren’t able to sleep. They couldn’t sleep all night because of the fear.

Dominic Bowen:
Kirtan, this is really great content. Thank you very much for the interview.

Just a friendly reminder: if you can just speak really slowly and really articulate your words, just because the internet connection is not great. You just have to speak really slowly and really articulate your words because of the internet connection.

So thank you for that.

Kirtan Pandit:
Thank you for the reminder. I will do it now.

Dominic Bowen:
Kirtan, if we look beyond the immediate emergency response and what’s happened over the last few days, as a scientist, what does this event suggest about Nepal’s long-term exposure to climate-driven events?

I’m wondering about the sort of investment that needs to occur in early warning systems and resilience, especially for communities living across the mountains, like in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nepal.

What does this mean, and what are some of the indications? What should we be thinking about for mountain communities from a scientific perspective?

Kirtan Pandit:
Yeah. So there were some early warning systems on the Rasuwa side, but before they could give us the data, they were wiped out by the flood. The flood was around 160 kilometres per hour in speed.

Nepal and other mountainous developing countries have been negotiating on different climate forums every year. But Nepal has always received only sympathy.

There has been no climate finance at all.

What I want to say to the high-emitter countries is that international regulations should turn into climate finance.

Now is the time that we cannot just let conferences happen just for the sake of happening. We need climate-change finance, which should be in financial numbers, and climate finance should reach Nepal.

Loss and Damage funds, climate finance and all the funds that are associated with climate change should come to Nepal. And they should not be in the form of loans; they should be in grants.

That is what we are demanding from the high-emitting countries, because Nepal, along with other mountainous developing countries, contributes almost nothing to global carbon emissions.

Nepal is facing the consequences. We are always dealing with lost lives, lost property and all the effects, even though we have contributed very little to the problem.

So this would be our major demand that needs to happen after this flood.

Dominic Bowen:
And you’ve been involved in analysing climate change for a long time, and you were actually one of Nepal’s delegates to the COP29 conference, which is a huge testament to your experience.

Can you help us understand how confident we can be? I mean, glaciers do collapse. Glaciers do fall apart. How confident can we be that this disaster was actually linked to climate change?

A lot of people are immediately saying, “Well, this is linked to climate change.” But sometimes these events occur even without the climate changing.

Can you talk to us about that? How confident can we be that this event was linked to climate change?

Kirtan Pandit:
So we can understand this by knowing that a change in temperature can turn ice into water. Global warming has increased temperatures and triggered conditions that contributed to the flood. It is directly linked to climate change.

We can understand that a glacier that is in ice form can turn into water in a relatively short period. The liquid water created from ice increases the amount of water in the lake, so it may burst or outburst at any time because of global warming and climate change.

So we can link climate change and global warming to this flood.

Dominic Bowen:
And Nepal is investing heavily in hydropower, and we discussed that earlier, as well as roads and other infrastructure that’s urgently needed. It’s really important, especially in the mountainous valleys and throughout some of the higher parts of Nepal.

But I’m wondering about our understanding of risk within the Himalayan region and whether that risk has changed enough that we now need to reconsider where, what and how this infrastructure is built.

Kirtan Pandit:
The infrastructure should be made more climate resilient.

We understand that early warning systems have been doing their work, but they are not as sufficient as they should be.

Early warning systems need to be in every area.

Currently, Nepal has so many potentially dangerous glacial lakes present, so they may burst and outburst at any time.

If the initial communities do not respond in time, we cannot assure that it won’t happen again very soon. It may happen very soon because Nepal, along with Tibet, has a lot of glacial lakes present in its territory.

This needs to be assessed by the authorities, and climate finance needs to be delivered as soon as possible to build resilient communities.

Dominic Bowen:
And I wonder if I can ask you a more global question. It’s a question that we ask all guests on the International Risk Podcast.

When you look around the world, when you see all the risks that are happening — from political, economic and financial risks to the risk of conflict — what are the risks that concern you the most?

Kirtan Pandit:
Currently, being a mountainous country, the risk is always climate change. Because we cannot control earthquakes, but we can control or minimise the chances of a glacial lake outburst.

The effects and adverse effects of climate change can be controlled or minimised in some form.

The current risk that mountainous countries like Nepal are facing is the adverse effect of climate change.

We see this across the landscape of Nepal, where we have been experiencing flooding and landslides due to climate change.

The risk is all about climate change.

Nepal has around 46 percent of its land covered by forest, yet it has contributed only 0.05 percent of global carbon emissions.

So we are facing all the adversity even though we have contributed very little to the problem. It is being driven by the high-emitting countries.

The risk is all about climate change in Nepal.

Dominic Bowen:
Well, thanks for explaining that. And thank you very much for taking the time to come on the International Risk Podcast.

I know you and your team at GeoSutra are very busy with the assessments of the current damage and recovery efforts, so I appreciate you taking time to speak with us this morning.

Kirtan Pandit:
Yeah, thanks so much for the opportunity to share what we saw, what we are doing and what Nepal needs from the international community.

It is a pleasure to talk to you at this time.

We will always be demanding climate justice from the international community because our communities are facing a lot from the adverse effects of climate change, despite having contributed very little to it.

Climate finance needs to come to Nepal in the form of grants, not as loans.

I would like to thank all the international communities who have been providing relief and aid and providing experts during these hard times in Nepal. We are thankful to them as well.

Currently, the government is doing everything they can. They are working 24/7, so thanks to them as well.

The Army, police, Armed Police Force and all the organisations that are working voluntarily to provide relief, aid and rescue operations — our thanks to all of them as well.

Let’s hope everything is restored as soon as possible and everyone can return to their regular lives very soon.

Dominic Bowen:
Thanks very much, Kirtan.

I really think that was a great conversation with Kirtan Pandit today, and I appreciated hearing his thoughts about the flood and the devastating disaster affecting so many people in Nepal today, and of course, the growing exposure to climate-driven disasters.

Today’s episode was produced and coordinated by Andrea Crawford.

I’m Dominic Bowen, your host.

Thanks very much for listening. We’ll speak again in the next couple of days.