The biggest help you can give Nepal is to visit

On 26 August 2026, a little before nine in the morning, a piece of Langtang Lirung mountain left its place. Ice and rock blocked a river, the river became a lake, and when the dam broke, the whole lake came down through the Bhote Koshi and Trishuli valleys. Villages, bridges, the road to Tibet, the customs post, hydropower plants: all of it, in a few minutes.

I have lived in Nepal for fifteen years. I have been through the 2015 earthquake and dozens of monsoons. What happened in Rasuwa I have never seen before, and neither have the Nepalis. That is why I am writing this article. Not to describe the disaster to you; the news bulletins did that. I am writing it to tell you something that may sound strange in the middle of the mourning: the biggest help you can give Nepal is to come. I will explain why, with numbers and not with slogans. I will tell you exactly what is open, what is closed, and how you can help starting today.

Last updated: 2 September 2026. The numbers change daily. This article is updated as the situation develops.

What exactly happened on 26 August 2026

The Rasuwa district lies north of Kathmandu, on the border with Tibet. It is the gateway to the Langtang Valley and to the Rasuwagadhi–Kerung crossing, through which thousands of pilgrims travel to Mount Kailash every year.

According to the geologists who analysed the seismic data, an enormous mass of ice and rock broke away from the Langtang Lirung glacier (summit 7,234 m) and fell into the bed of the Lhende Khola river. The mass blocked the river, and water gathered behind the makeshift dam. When the dam gave way, the water, the mud and the boulders came down like a wall through the narrow Bhote Koshi valley and continued into the Trishuli. Timure, Rasuwagadhi and Syabrubesi, the village where every Langtang trek begins, were hit first. The destruction carried on downstream, into the Nuwakot, Dhading, Gorkha, Tanahun and Chitwan districts. On the other side of the border, the Gyirong customs post disappeared.

On ERT, the Greek public broadcaster, the following day, I put it as simply as I could: “An entire mountain left, it turned into water and it took everything”.

24 August 2026

26 August 2026

The numbers, as they stand today

• More than 1,000 dead and almost 4,000 missing in Nepal, according to the provisional toll released by the authorities on 1 September. On the Tibetan side, 16 dead and more than 500 missing.
• 583 foreign nationals from 38 countries are missing, most of them pilgrims travelling towards Kailash. From the first day, after speaking with the consular authorities, I could say with relief that, as far as I know, there is no Greek or Cypriot on the list of the missing. The list is updated constantly.
• Around 10,000 households need immediate assistance, according to the World Health Organization. Three health centres were completely destroyed and one hospital partly so.
• The government declared 15 municipalities disaster zones for three months and mobilised more than 20,000 soldiers, police officers and rescuers.
• 41 bridges and 42 kilometres of road were destroyed, according to the official tally. The only road to Rasuwagadhi and Tibet no longer exists.

What I saw from Pokhara

Pokhara, where I live with my family, is about 100 kilometres from the place where it happened. Not one drop of rain fell here beyond the usual monsoon. Phewa Lake was calm, the shops in Lakeside were open, the domestic flights left on time. And yet, from nine in the morning my phone did not stop ringing: friends from Greece, relatives of travellers, journalists, our Embassy in New Delhi.

That same evening, around ten o’clock, I was talking to Newsbomb with my eyes on the news coming out of Rasuwa: “The torrent has now started, little by little, to calm down. It is about 22:00 here in Nepal and we can see the water level beginning to drop”. The next day, on ERT, I tried to explain why this is not just another monsoon flood: “An enormous disaster has happened. People have not yet realised what has taken place”. “Nepal is used to small-scale landslides. A hillside goes, it takes five houses, a bit of a village. This is an unprecedented phenomenon”. And about the road to the border: “The only road you could take was destroyed, it no longer exists”. And I said it and I believe it: this could set the country “20 years back”.

What frightens me more than the images is the invisible part. I said it on ERT: “It is not only that many people will be lost, it is also a terrible economic disaster for this land”. Tourism is 6.6% of the country's economy, and autumn is the season the whole mountain world lives off: the guides, the porters, the families who run a four-room lodge, the jeep drivers, the women who sell apples along the trail. The former head of the Nepal Tourism Board has already warned that the blow to tourism will last at least six to seven months. That is, the entire season.

“We see the mountains here, we live off them”. I said it and I meant it. And because I see them every morning from my window, I know that Nepal did not end on 26 August.

Why I say the biggest help is to come

After the 2015 earthquake a mistake was made that I am afraid will be repeated now. People abroad saw the images, cancelled their trips, and Nepal lost almost a third of its visitors in the year it needed them most. The donations came, and they were precious. But donations run out. A guide who is working, a lodge that has guests, a porter who gets paid, do not need charity. They need work.

Think about where the money from a trip goes. Hotels, guides, porters, food, transport, permits. It does not go into a fund. It goes straight into the hands of people who live in villages, and from there into their schools, their pharmacies, their shops. A group that comes in October is a winter for several families.

And there is something else, which cannot be measured. When you come to a country that is grieving, you tell it that you have not forgotten it. Nepalis remember that. They remember it for decades.

I am not asking you to go to Rasuwa. Rasuwa is closed, and rightly so. I am asking you not to cancel Everest, Annapurna, Pokhara or Chitwan because you saw an image from a valley that lies tens or hundreds of kilometres away from where you will actually set foot.

What is open and what is closed in Nepal (2 September 2026)

Sources: Nepal Tourism Board, local agencies and on-the-ground updates from travellers, 1 and 2 September. Before you travel, ask me. I know which road opened yesterday.

How to travel responsibly in Nepal right now

• Do not go to Rasuwa, Langtang, Gosaikunda or the banks of the Trishuli until they officially reopen. You help no one, and you get in the way of the rescue crews.
• If you had planned Langtang, change it to Annapurna, Everest or Manaslu. The Langtang guide lost their job. If you take them with you to Annapurna, they have not lost it.
• Fly Kathmandu–Pokhara instead of taking the bus for the first few weeks. The road is disrupted and running on detours. The flight is 25 minutes instead of 8 to 10 hours, and more than that at the moment.
• Get travel insurance with helicopter and high-altitude cover. Always, not only now.
• Work with a local agency and a licensed guide. It has been mandatory since 2023, and now it is a safety matter too: the guides know which trails have changed.
• October and November are the best time of the year: the monsoon ends, the sky clears, the trails dry out. Flights from Athens are still reasonably priced.

How you can help today, from Greece

If you cannot travel, or you want to do something now, give money and not things. A parcel of clothes costs more to get here than it is worth. And give only to official organisations. In the first 72 hours after any disaster the internet fills up with fake appeals.

• Prime Minister's Disaster Relief Fund: the official fund of the government of Nepal. By law, the money goes only to rescue, medical care, relief and reconstruction, not to administrative costs. The accounts are audited every year.
• Nepal Red Cross Society: on the ground from the first hour, in the evacuations, the search and the shelters.
• IFRC and CARE: international organisations with an active mission in the affected areas.

If you want your help to reach closer to the people, write to me. I will tell you what I know first-hand.

How you can help in October

Book your trip. Nepal is waiting for you this autumn with the clearest sky of the year. If you would like us to plan it together, with local guides and with money that stays here, send me a message or look at the ready-made itineraries. For high-end journeys with private coordination, there is Elysian Himalaya. And if you do not book with us, book with any Nepali agency at all. The point is not who takes you. The point is that you come.

My interviews and the videos

Since 26 August I have spoken to a number of Greek media outlets. I am leaving them here for anyone who wants to hear the story from the beginning.

• ERT News, 27 Aug: “An entire mountain left, it turned into water and it took everything”
• CNN Greece, 26 Aug (interview on Alpha TV): “Here they are talking about thousands of dead, there is no Greek on the list”
• Proto Thema, 26 Aug: “What happened was terrifying”
• Newsbomb, 26 Aug: “A dam broke, like an iceberg, villages and towns were destroyed”
• in.gr, 27 Aug
• Efimerida ton Syntakton, 27 Aug
• VoiceNews (video): “We are talking about thousands of dead”
• SKAI, September 2025 (video): on the Gen Z unrest in Nepal, one year earlier
• Meet Your Host: From Berklee to the Himalayas (video): who I am and how I ended up here

Sources

• Wikipedia: August 2026 Nepal floods, consolidated toll based on the announcements of the authorities (1 Sep)
• World Health Organization, Nepal: 2026 Rasuwa flash floods
• Ministry of Home Affairs of Nepal: official appeal for assistance
• Kathmandu Post, 28 Aug: Nepal tourism faces another setback
• Kathmandu Post, 27 Aug: How people can help
• The Longest Way Home: Nepal floods 2026, what travellers need to know (1 Sep)

Photographs: Dimitris Giannopoulos / Nepal.gr, unless otherwise stated. Hero photo, the Langtang range with Langtang Lirung: Bibek010, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Satellite images: ESA, Copernicus Sentinel-2 (CC BY 4.0) and USGS, Landsat 9 (public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.