Namaste, diaspora family. This is the third week since the Bhotekoshi came down, and the first in which the digest returns to its usual four sections. The flood is still in all of them.
On Tuesday, Nepal marked one year since the police opened fire on students outside Parliament in Baneshwar. It was a public holiday. The families came to the old Parliament building; the Prime Minister did not. Meanwhile the diaspora has raised more than $10 million on GoFundMe alone, and a grandmother in Trisuli Bazar told a reporter she cannot afford milk for the child in her arms. A minister resigned over gas cylinders. Sauraha’s hotels are running at five percent. And on Saturday morning, Nepal play the UAE for the only place in the 2027 Asia Cup.
The count, as of Friday morning: 1,385 dead and 5,130 missing.
Where Things Stand
Figures from the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority as of 11am on Friday 11 September, unless stated:
Dead: 1,385. Chitwan 364, Nawalparasi East 228, Nawalparasi West 222, Nuwakot 199, Rasuwa 185, Gorkha 77, Dhading 70, Tanahun 38, and two who died in treatment in Kathmandu (The Tribune).
Missing: 5,130 on the authority’s wider count. The government’s narrower figure remains 3,916.
Identified and returned to families: 102 of 1,367 bodies and partial remains recovered by Wednesday (The Kathmandu Post).
Trishuli 3A: the search of the main tunnel was called off on 4 September, hours after last week’s edition went out. A seven-member team reached every section and found one more body and nobody else (The Kathmandu Post).
Power: 83 percent of supply restored in Rasuwa, 95 percent in Nuwakot; a 60-metre temporary bridge over the Tadi at Devighat (The Kathmandu Post).
A new warning, Friday: a landslide has dammed the Hunga Khola at Gudel in Solukhumbu. The river is now overtopping it toward the Dudhkoshi, and police have told people downstream to stay off the banks in case the blockage gives way (The Kathmandu Post).
🌍 Diaspora & Globalisation
Ten Million Dollars, and No Milk in Trisuli Bazar
NepYork went through 111 GoFundMe campaigns for the flood this week and found more than $10 million raised on that platform alone. Bhutanese Americans in Columbus, Ohio, had passed $105,000; a family appeal in Waratah, Australia, was near $70,000; campaigns in Edmond, Oklahoma, and Lexington, Massachusetts, stood at $59,000 and $51,000; Keshab Raj Seadie’s drive in New York was over $64,000 and going to the Prime Minister’s fund. Nepali Samaj Fort Wayne sent $22,000. A football club in Austin sent $2,000. The government’s two relief funds had taken in about $80 million by Monday. Of that, about $6.5 million had been released to the disaster authority. Which is how you get to Lila Devi Joshi, 60, in Trisuli Bazar, who lost her home, her shops and most of her family, and is now raising a sixteen-month-old grandson: “I don’t even have money to buy milk for the child.” Or Inam Tamang in Mailung, a heart patient whose wife has diabetes, whose road to a pharmacy no longer exists: “We cannot live by eating relief food alone. Tomorrow, the children have to go to school.” The money is not the problem. Getting it from a bank account in Kathmandu to a tent in Nuwakot is. If your community is deciding where its next collection goes, that is the question to put to whoever receives it (NepYork).
A footnote on the newest channel. Cryptocurrency is still illegal to trade in Nepal, so a group including former US ambassador Scott DeLisi’s Engage Nepal, Polygon and Cross River Bank built a route around it: coins donated to NepalRelief.org are converted to dollars in the United States and wired to the Prime Minister’s fund by SWIFT, so no crypto ever crosses the border. Ripple has pledged $300,000 and the Solana ecosystem has raised about $167,000. As of Monday, $500 had actually arrived (The Kathmandu Post).
New York, in Two Weeks
The cabinet confirmed on Thursday that Balendra Shah will be in New York from 22 to 26 September and will address the General Assembly on the 24th, his first trip abroad since taking office in March. He goes with a number. The Foreign Ministry put the cost of reconstruction at $4.78 billion on Friday: $57.67 million needed in the next six months, $4.71 billion after that, against a UN estimate of $158 million for buildings alone. “The total estimated requirement for reconstruction is approximately $4.78 billion,” said spokesman Lok Bahadur Chhetri. The Prime Minister also goes with a first result. The UN’s Loss and Damage fund has confirmed $20 million for Nepal under its start-up window, on proposals filed before the flood; the separate emergency appeal filed on 31 August is still waiting on the fund’s 26-member board, and small-island and African members have been pressing the developed-country members to convene. The Foreign Ministry is talking about a climate ambassador and a year-round negotiating unit, language that would have sounded ambitious a month ago. For readers in the New York area, the timing is deliberate: the Nepali American Business and Investment Summit runs at the JFK Marriott from 25 to 27 September with Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal as chief guest, so the government will be in the room with the diaspora that has just funded much of its relief effort (Business Standard, The Express Tribune, The Kathmandu Post, NepYork).
In Brief: Two notes for readers in the United States, and one for New York.
The immigrant visa pause is over. We covered the January suspension of immigrant visas for nationals of 75 countries, Nepal included, when it happened. On 21 August, Judge Jeannette Vargas of the Southern District of New York struck it down, ruling that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had exceeded his authority, and the State Department confirmed on 1 September that the pause “is no longer in effect.” Cases refused under it go back to consular officers for a fresh look. That is not an approval, and other grounds for refusal still apply, but if your family’s case was frozen, it is moving again (NepYork).
The citizenship test may change. DHS has listed a proposed rule, “Protecting the Integrity of Naturalization through Enhanced Educational Standards,” on its regulatory agenda, with a draft pencilled in for December. It talks about clearer English and civics standards, possibly outsourcing the test to third parties, and “proper assimilation.” Nothing changes until a final rule is published, and that is a year away at least (NepYork).
Jackson Heights, and a book sale. Nepali businesses on Roosevelt Avenue ran a two-day fair last weekend in the car park of Gorkhali restaurant, with every dollar going to the Prime Minister’s fund; the organiser waived stall fees for vendors who gave away all their takings. Nepali authors in New York hold a relief book sale on 13 September (NepYork, NepYork).
🏛️ Politics & Governance
One Year Since Baneshwar, Two Versions of It
Tuesday was the first Gen Z Martyrs’ Day, a public holiday. Families of the dead gathered at the burned-out old Parliament in Baneshwar, where the shooting began on 8 September last year. Twenty-seven people died that day, 76 across the two days. Home Minister Sudan Gurung attended. Prime Minister Balendra Shah did not. Activist Pawan Khadka was taken into police custody after criticising the government’s record from the stage. Ganesh Chaulagain, whose son Shreeyam was a Grade 12 student, said an elected government “has no room left for excuses.” The government has declared 45 of the 76 dead martyrs: 42 protesters and three police officers. Who the other 31 were, and who answers for them, is where the two versions begin. KP Sharma Oli, in a video message, said 9 September was a day of “terrifying destruction” in which “criminal groups infiltrated the peaceful demonstration.” Pushpa Kamal Dahal called the whole thing “mysterious.” Congress president Gagan Thapa was the only party leader to ask for both days to be investigated equally, and to admit his own party’s part in what caused them. The Human Rights Commission and the Karki Commission both documented abuses on both days; neither set of recommendations has been fully acted on. Al Jazeera counts more than 900 people still jailed for the arson, unofficially 1,600. Gen Z activist Aayush Basyal notes that 25 of 29 activists invited to a constitutional amendment meeting in May stayed away, and warns of “a second wave of public disenchantment.” Liza Adhikari, 21, shot outside Parliament that day and still recovering from surgery in India: “Maybe, if I had listened to my parents that day, this wouldn’t have happened” (The Kathmandu Post, Al Jazeera, The Rising Nepal, Global Voices).
If you read one long piece this week, make it the Kathmandu Post’s reconstruction of the five days when the Army’s Jangi Adda headquarters became the country’s political centre: the cabinet that met on the evening of 8 September and made no decision about 21 dead, the curfew that was not reissued until 8:30 the next morning, the Army deploying at 9pm without a formal order, the prime minister chosen by a Discord vote, and the midnight meeting at which the Army chief floated the former king as a “stakeholder” (The Kathmandu Post).
A Minister Falls Over a Gas Cylinder
On Wednesday, Industry, Commerce and Supplies Minister Gauri Kumari Yadav told the House Industry Committee that Kathmandu’s cooking-gas shortage would not end “until the industrialists are brought to heel,” proposed revoking the licences of all 58 gas bottling companies (”in a country like ours, we don’t need more than two”), and asked a fair question badly: “We sent 48,000 cylinders to Kathmandu the other day, but no one here has received more than 19,000 or 20,000. Where did the rest go?” The Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce called the remarks “highly objectionable, irresponsible and unfortunate.” On Thursday she resigned, citing personal reasons, the third minister to leave Balendra Shah’s cabinet since it was formed in March. The shortage she was describing is real. Imports fell by more than a third between March and May when the Iran war tightened supply, and had only just recovered when the Prithvi Highway fell into the Trishuli at Krishnabhir on 30 August. The Oil Corporation says 63,383 cylinders reached the Valley over two days last week; the queues at the depots say otherwise. Commercial supply to restaurants and canteens has been suspended, a transport surcharge has taken a cylinder to Rs 2,165, and a “command post” of district officers, the corporation, the bottlers and the police now tracks trucks from dispatch to depot. The Post’s editorial on Friday asked the government to investigate the supply chain properly rather than blame the landslide, and to subsidise induction cookers. Yadav’s successor will inherit the same numbers (The Kathmandu Post, IANS, The Tribune, The Kathmandu Post, The Kathmandu Post).
In Brief: Elsewhere in Singha Durbar.
Lamichhane wants a committee, and some manners. RSP chair Rabi Lamichhane asked the House on Wednesday to declare the flood a national climate disaster and to set up an all-party parliamentary committee to oversee recovery. He also asked for action against people abusing survivors online for criticising the state: “When people are in deep pain and facing an unexpected loss, they may even question God. How, then, can we expect them not to question the government?” (The Kathmandu Post).
Congress pushes its calendar. The ward-level conventions that were to open on 9 September now begin on the 19th, municipal rounds on the 23rd, regional on the 26th, with the 15th general convention itself still set for 2 to 4 October (Radio Nepal).
An adviser, and a bill. Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle has brought in Bishwo Parajuli, a veteran of the UN system with a disaster-management background, as honorary humanitarian adviser until mid-December. The House passed the Law Commission amendment bill without opposition on Friday and sits again on 15 September (myRepublica, Nepal News).
💸 Economy & Development
Sauraha at Five Percent
Nothing happened to Chitwan’s jungle. Something happened to its bookings. Hotel occupancy in Sauraha, which has 125 hotels and beds for 8,000 people a night, is below five percent in what should be the start of the season. The 65-room Royal Tulip has had 80 percent of its reservations cancelled; the Soaltee Westend at Patihani has lost 40 percent through November. “Tourism has been hit because reports have spread internationally portraying the situation in Nepal as disastrous,” said Suman Ghimire of Jungle Safari Lodge. Pokhara’s hotels report up to 30 percent cancellations, and the Mustang Chowk bus park, which normally sends 24 coaches a day to Kathmandu, is sending none because the highway is cut. Lumbini’s Indian package market has gone quiet. September to November brings 40 percent of Nepal’s annual arrivals; the Post’s editorial reckons a 10 to 15 percent hit to the year’s receipts if the perception holds, on top of 207 hotels and restaurants damaged in the four flood districts, 199 of them destroyed. The perception is the part readers abroad can do something about. Kathmandu, Pokhara, Chitwan, Lumbini, the Annapurna and Everest regions are open and undamaged. Langtang, Gosaikunda, Helambu and the Rasuwa road are not. If someone asks you whether Nepal is safe to visit this autumn, that is the accurate answer (The Kathmandu Post, The Kathmandu Post, NepYork).
Rs 723 Billion, and the First Rs 3 Billion
The rapid damage assessment by the Planning Commission and the disaster authority has landed at Rs 723 billion, about $4.7 billion, which is what the Foreign Ministry’s $4.78 billion figure is built on. Against it, the first international money with the word “climate” attached is the Loss and Damage fund’s $20 million, roughly Rs 3 billion. The education slice shows how the total is built: Rs 2.34 billion to replace 18 schools, 11 of them gone entirely, for more than 9,000 children, with Rs 105 million needed at once and the rest over years; five private-school associations have promised Rs 1 billion for a thousand scholarships through Grade 12 for children who lost parents. The Post asked the harder question this week, which is how a country that has to rebuild every few years is supposed to afford to build better. “Higher disaster risks mean increased cost of development,” said ICIMOD economist Mani Nepal, arguing that money spent on adaptation now is cheaper than the same money spent on reconstruction later. Hydrologist Anil Aryal made the point that infrastructure built this year will stand for 50 to 80 years in a climate nobody has modelled. And Geeta Pandey of KIRDARC described “a painful distance between an impressive legal framework and the reality faced by communities.” None of that is new. What is new is that the numbers are now large enough that someone in New York might listen (The Express Tribune, The Kathmandu Post, The Kathmandu Post).
In Brief: The road, and two numbers from before the flood.
Krishnabhir, before Dashain. The Prithvi Highway has now been shut for two weeks at the slip. A 250-metre track cut into the hillside above the collapse is being gravelled, but Infrastructure Minister Sunil Lamsal admits “it is not a long-term solution.” The real plan is a 12-kilometre road on the far bank of the Trishuli between the surviving bridges at Benighat and Fishling, which the ministry wants open before Dashain in mid-October, and a tunnel study once the monsoon ends. Krishnabhir slid in 1999 and 2000 too (The Kathmandu Post).
IT is where the foreign money wants to go. Of 1,116 projects that received foreign investment commitments in the fiscal year to July, 727 were in information technology, worth Rs 5.8 billion; tourism was a distant second at 227, manufacturing had 63, energy four. If you are a Nepali abroad thinking about putting money into the country, that is where your peers already are (OnlineKhabar).
One exporter in 25. That is how many Nepali firms sell abroad through e-commerce, according to SAWTEE, which reckons garment exports alone could grow 25 to 35 percent if they did. The blockers are the usual ones: freight costs, no way to take a card payment from abroad, and no logistics partner to handle returns (The Kathmandu Post).
⭐ Social & Cultural
A Portal for the Missing
By Wednesday, 1,367 bodies and partial remains had been recovered and 102 had been given a name and returned to a family. That gap is now being worked from two directions. Nepal Police have taken 2,570 DNA samples, half from remains and half from relatives, with forensic teams from India, China, Singapore and South Korea helping to process them; spokesperson Abi Narayan Kafle says DNA “remains the only reliable option for badly damaged remains.” The other direction is a website. Samir Panthi of the Kathmandu firm Nowtrkit, with two engineers from the Indian face-recognition company FaceTagr, has built khozi.facetagr.com, where a family uploads a photograph of the missing person with their name, age, sex, last known location and any distinguishing marks. The system compares it against photographs of the recovered and returns five to ten candidates for a human to check. About 500 missing people have been registered and 90 bodies have been matched so far; the algorithm is 99 percent accurate on the living and considerably less so on the dead, for reasons that need no explaining. The 335 unidentified bodies buried at Devghat on 29 August were photographed and sampled first, so a match there can still bring someone home. This is one of the few things a relative abroad can do directly: the portal takes uploads from anywhere, and a DNA reference sample can be given by any close relative at a district hospital in Nepal (The Kathmandu Post).
Oman for 60, UAE on Saturday, Nagoya Next Week
Nepal’s cricketers bowled Oman out for 60 in Thursday’s ACC Premier Cup semi-final at Bayuemas Oval in Kuala Lumpur, defending 147 with 87 runs to spare and finishing the job inside 29 overs. That puts them into Saturday’s final against the UAE at 7:15am Nepal time, and the prize is bigger than the trophy: the winner takes the tournament’s only place at the 2027 Asia Cup. Nepal have won four of five matches here, losing only to Hong Kong, and hold an 18-14 edge over the UAE across formats, including both ODIs in Kirtipur earlier this year. Rohit Paudel’s anchoring and Dipendra Singh Airee’s record against the UAE in tight games are the reasons for optimism; a batting order that left its bowlers to defend 147 in a semi-final is the reason for caution. Rain is forecast. A week later the same core, with Airee as captain, flies to Japan for the Asian Games, where Nepal’s cricket group contains Afghanistan on 25 September and Japan on the 26th. The full contingent of 135 athletes in 21 sports, 57 of them women, was farewelled by Sports Minister Sasmit Pokharel on Thursday; kabaddi sends 24 and wushu 10. The Games open in Aichi-Nagoya on 19 September (myRepublica, OnlineKhabar, OnlineKhabar).
In Brief: Schools, a screen, and a hospital bill.
Bidur went back to school. Sixty-five of Bidur Municipality’s 79 schools reopened on Wednesday, two weeks after the flood; five are destroyed and nine are still sheltering displaced families. “The children from flood-affected areas can attend whichever school is most convenient for them,” said Deputy Mayor Prabha Bogati. “They should not worry if they do not have a school uniform.” Around 600 children across Rasuwa and Nuwakot are still unaccounted for (The Kathmandu Post).
Elephants in the Fog, on a Kathmandu screen. The Licchavi Cinema Festival runs from 11 to 15 September at Licchavi House in Boudha, with Abinash Bikram Shah’s Cannes prize-winner alongside Wenders, Tarkovsky, Payal Kapadia and Deepak Rauniyar. “Nepal has produced films screened at Cannes and Berlin,” said curator Abishek Budhathoki. “Yet access to serious cinema on proper screens remains limited here” (Nepali Times).
No co-pay, no ID. The Health Insurance Board has waived co-payments and identification requirements for anyone seeking treatment in Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading for the 90 days the three districts remain disaster crisis zones. Tell your relatives there (The Kathmandu Post).
How to Help
The verified list from two weeks ago still holds: the Prime Minister’s Disaster Relief Fund via opmcm.gov.np and nowhere else, Nepal Red Cross, and your NRNA national committee’s own channel rather than a forwarded link. Three additions this week:
Ask where it went. Roughly $80 million has been given to the government funds and roughly $6.5 million has reached the disaster authority. If your community gave, it is reasonable to ask your embassy or your NRNA committee what has been disbursed and to whom.
If someone is missing: register them at khozi.facetagr.com with a clear photograph, and arrange for a close relative in Nepal to give a DNA sample at a district hospital. Nepal Tourism Board hotline 1234 (toll-free in Nepal) or 1144.
Give to the school fund if you want something specific. The Rs 2.34 billion education bill and the Scholarship Bank for children who lost parents are the most clearly costed needs published so far.
Our sponsor, belayat.uk, the UK Nepali community noticeboard, is still carrying relief appeals alongside its jobs, housing and events listings. If your group is organising a collection or a vigil, post it there.
Next week: the cricket final, the Asian Games from the 19th, Indra Jatra from the 23rd, and the Prime Minister’s week in New York. We will keep the count, and we will correct anything here that turns out to be wrong.
Until next week, stay connected.
— The Nepali Diaspora Digest Team
nepalidiaspora.net
All figures in this edition are as reported by Friday 11 September 2026 and are expected to change.
