Landslide-Triggered Flood Sweeps Houses and Bridges in Nepal’s Gorkha District

A sudden flood on the Budhi Gandaki River swept away houses, bridges and hydropower equipment in Gorkha district of Nepal on Sunday, 11 October 2026. Preliminary reports put the number of missing between five and ten, while the Nepal Army and other teams rescued between 50 and 82 people, including some foreign tourists.

The surge began around 4 a.m. after a landslide apparently blocked the river near Chumnubri Rural Municipality. When the temporary dam broke, water levels rose sharply. At one monitoring station the level climbed from roughly two metres to more than eight metres within hours. A hydrological station itself was washed away. Meteorologists said little rain had fallen in the upper catchment in the preceding 24 hours, pointing to the landslide blockage rather than heavy rainfall as the trigger.

About 35 houses were reported swept away in Painyu and Bagar villages. Settlements in Jagat, Salleri, Dobhan and Ghattekhola were also hit. Six bridges, including motorable and suspension bridges, were destroyed. Construction camps and equipment at the 341-megawatt Budhi Gandaki hydropower project in Salleri were carried off. The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority later listed 45 houses completely damaged and 27 partially damaged, along with livestock sheds and three vehicles.

The flood struck as communities prepared for the first day of Dashain, a major festival. More than 200 foreign tourists were reported stuck on the Manaslu trekking circuit, which uses the lower Budhi Gandaki corridor. Helicopters airlifted people from Jagat and other points. Prime Minister Balen Shah said army contingents were deployed by air and land. A joint rapid response team was sent from Kathmandu.

Nepal is still recovering from earlier floods and landslides this year that killed more than 1,400 people near the Tibet border. Sunday’s event was smaller in scale but hit infrastructure already strained. Officials continue to search for the missing, two of them women, in the Ungilung area. Early warnings were sent by SMS to riverside communities farther downstream.

The immediate task is to account for everyone still unaccounted for and to reopen access along a corridor used by both local residents and trekkers. Rebuilding bridges and assessing the hydropower site will take longer. Whether further landslides upstream create additional blockages remains a live risk while the monsoon residual season continues.