LocationsNo kites in Nepal’s skies this Dashain
October 15, 2026
Autumn in Nepal should smell of marigolds in bloom.
It is the season of Dashain, our biggest Hindu festival of the year. Clear skies. Children flying paper kites. Families crossing mountains to receive blessings from their elders of red tika, the mark applied to the forehead with vermillion paste.
This year, however, swathes of Nuwakot, Rasuwa and Dhading districts lie beneath meters of river silt. Hearths are cold. Homes are silent.
There are no kites in the sky.
On 26 August 2026, a sudden flash flood tore down the Bhote Koshi–Trishuli basin. In minutes, boulders, mud, and water crushed homes, farmlands, and shops across the three districts. Around 1,500 lives were lost nationwide. Thousands remain displaced.
The water has receded. The silence left behind is deafening.
Nothing Left to Celebrate
"The flood took everything. There is nothing left to celebrate," says 54-year-old Pramila Gurung.
She walks across a grey wasteland of dried mud and silt in Kashitar where her home stood a month ago.
Disaster keeps finding Pramila. In 2015, the major earthquake flattened her home in Rasuwa. Her family migrated to Nuwakot and rebuilt near the riverbank, starting from scratch.
Last month, the river took that, too.
It also took her crops, her personal belongings, and her family's only buffalo. It also took eight relatives, including her older sister.
Today, Pramila lives in a damp rented room. She cares for two orphaned nieces and a husband paralyzed for two years.
"I survived," she says. "Now I carry the memories of the dead and the responsibility of the living."
54-year-old Pramila Gurung, right where her home stood a month ago.
A Market Out of Reach
Upriver in Dhunge, 36-year-old Shovita Adhikari stares at the rocks blocking the entrance of her former grocery shop.
Ten years of hard work achieved through loans vanished in two minutes.
She escaped uphill, guiding her blind husband through the alleys with only the clothes on their backs. He lost his mobility cane in the flood. He is spending his Dashain days in a small, rented room.
36-year-old Shovita Adhikari stares at the rocks blocking the entrance of her former grocery shop.
Dashain is a time to gift new clothes to family. Shovita wanted to buy a folding cane and a warm sweater for her husband for the cold nights.
In the bazaar, prices have doubled, however. Disrupted mountain roads and festival shortages have turned basic necessities into luxuries.
"I have no shop. I have no income," she says. "I cannot even give my husband his dignity."
Second-Hand Shoes
In a temporary holding camp down the road, ten-year-old Sabal Tamang sits on a concrete step, clutching a donated light blue shirt.
He has nowhere to wear it.
"This place is like a cage," Sabal says. "My friends are scattered in rooms across the district. I only hear their voices on the phone. I miss the bamboo swings. I miss the village fair."
His 80-year-old grandfather, Hum Tamang, spent the last of his savings on a pair of second-hand shoes so the boy would not be barefoot for the festival.
Still, Sabal looks at the empty cooking stove.
"In Dashain, you eat meat and feast together," he says. "Our kitchen is silent. There is nothing special today."
Searching the Ruins
The deepest grief cannot be weighed in rupee debts or empty pots.
In Betrawati, Pramod Rijal spends his holiday mornings inside the cab of a digger from the municipality, shifting tonnes of mud.
He is looking for three bodies: his elderly parents, Shiva and Bhakti, and his six-year-old daughter, Pragyashree.
She had just celebrated her birthday. If the flood had struck ten minutes later, she would have been safe in her hilltop classroom.
"Not knowing where they lie is an endless nightmare," Pramod says, his voice hoarse from dust and exhaustion. "I still see her face in the water. I do not ask for happiness this Dashain. I only ask to find my daughter's body, so I can give her a proper resting place."
In Betrawati, Pramod Rijal searches for his loved ones, shifting tonnes of mud.
A Mountain Warning
UNDP is on the ground in Nuwakot alongside local governments. Our support will help them clear thousands of tonnes of debris, set up cash-for-work programmes, and plan safer permanent settlements.
Yet this tragedy is also a warning for the 240 million people living under the Himalayas.
The mountains are warming. Slopes are failing. The unprecedented flood disaster proved that mountain communities can no longer survive on reaction time alone.
Without flexible loss and damage funding, localized early warning systems, and real-time monitoring of unstable glaciers, more communities will lose their heritage to the water.
Life Beyond the Floodwaters
This Dashain, holiday lights will shine across Nepal, but in the river valleys of Nuwakot, Rasuwa and Dhading, the skies remain empty of kites.
Families are mourning their dead and waiting for the chance to rebuild. Before the marigolds bloom again next year, recovery must mean more than rebuilding homes. It must mean helping communities live safely, with dignity, and with hope for the festivals still to come.