The Tibet/Nepal disaster

The recent Tibet/Nepal river tsunami was horrific and struck home as took me back to personal experience of a similar, far smaller but still massive, event in Nepal.

In 2014 I was part of a supported group cycle ride in the Tibetan/Nepalese Himalaya. Riding from Lhasa, Tibet, we entered Nepal down the Zhangmu/Kodari Pass & 'Friendship Highway' that the current border crossing replaced after Kodari and the highway was destroyed by earthquakes in 2015.

On that ride we crossed a massive landslide that blocked a river, the resulting natural dam it formed then broke killing at least 156 in the resulting flood. It was in recovery by the time we got there, about a month after the event, but still a horrific scene.

I remember seeing a small boy, watched by his mum or maybe older sister, 'playing diggers'—on the roadside—with a small toy excavator just a few kilometres away from where real ones were still trying to recover the landslide and still wonder what he'd lost.

Himalayan Cycle 21 — Kodari to Kathmandu, Nepal

Last ride, through a tragedy

RobiNZ BlogsRobin Capper

Remembering Kodari, another victim of the Nepal Earthquakes

Kodari devastated

RobiNZ BlogsRobin Capper

Now thousands more have met the same fate, the survivor's same future, and John Birmingham's 'The Reckoning" take on why is correct:

"That imagery of the Himalayan tsunami smashing into the multi-story building in Nepal was horrifying, but then murder always is, isn’t it? That’s what happened at that border crossing: mass murder." — John Birmingham

The Reckoning

That imagery of the Himalayan tsunami smashing into the multi-story building in Nepal was horrifying, but then murder always is, isn’t it?

Alien SideboobJohn Birmingham

If you can help, find a local charity operating in Nepal, they need our support.