* 10 August 2007
* NewScientist.com news service
Floods in the mountain kingdom of Nepal? It sounds unlikely, but Nepal has a low-lying region called Terai, and much of it has been submerged in the past week following intense rains during the south Asian monsoon. Even more surprisingly, Nepal is blaming its downstream neighbour, India, for the floods.
The Nepalese foreign ministry charges that dams built by India all along the border, often illegally, are preventing rivers draining from Nepal and causing hundreds of the country's villages to disappear under water. The dams are on tributaries of the river Ganges that flow out of the Himalayas. The Indian state of Bihar has been protected at the expense of Terai, Nepal claims.
Political tensions have risen as parliamentarians in the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, have demanded that India demolish dams, including the 13-kilometre-long Laxmanpur barrage on the Rapti river. Indian politicians have countered that Nepal should instead build its own dams high in the Himalayan valleys to hold back heavy monsoon flows.
The floods have left millions homeless in India, Bangladesh and Nepal. But are the rains exceptional, and a product of global warming? Climatologists point out that until the last days of July, this summer's monsoon had been weak, with fears of crop failure due to drought rather than flood. Nevertheless, in general, global warming is adding to river flows by melting the glaciers of the Himalayas.
* NewScientist.com news service
Floods in the mountain kingdom of Nepal? It sounds unlikely, but Nepal has a low-lying region called Terai, and much of it has been submerged in the past week following intense rains during the south Asian monsoon. Even more surprisingly, Nepal is blaming its downstream neighbour, India, for the floods.
The Nepalese foreign ministry charges that dams built by India all along the border, often illegally, are preventing rivers draining from Nepal and causing hundreds of the country's villages to disappear under water. The dams are on tributaries of the river Ganges that flow out of the Himalayas. The Indian state of Bihar has been protected at the expense of Terai, Nepal claims.
Political tensions have risen as parliamentarians in the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, have demanded that India demolish dams, including the 13-kilometre-long Laxmanpur barrage on the Rapti river. Indian politicians have countered that Nepal should instead build its own dams high in the Himalayan valleys to hold back heavy monsoon flows.
The floods have left millions homeless in India, Bangladesh and Nepal. But are the rains exceptional, and a product of global warming? Climatologists point out that until the last days of July, this summer's monsoon had been weak, with fears of crop failure due to drought rather than flood. Nevertheless, in general, global warming is adding to river flows by melting the glaciers of the Himalayas.
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