The guardian angel: One woman’s fight to save lives in flood-prone Nepal

As the Karnali River swells with monsoon rains, Parbati Gurung, 55, navigates a treacherous path down to its soggy banks.

She then diligently records the water level of Nepal's longest river, a vital waterway that carves through the mountains before flowing into the Ganges in India.

Inside a small concrete shed perched precariously close to the river, she cross-checks her manual measurements with data from a radar logging device.

Since a 2014 flood destroyed the concrete gauge along the river, she now faces an even riskier challenge: measuring water levels when they rise above nine meters.

To do this, she scrambles over boulders and struggles for a clear view, taking mental notes of the measurements. Despite frequent slips and the ever-present threat of being swept away by the river, Gurung persists, driven by a mission that is as critical as it is dangerous.

The Himalayan nation is home to some of the world’s highest peaks, including Mount Everest, and fast-flowing mountain streams fed by melting snow from the mountain ranges.

Gurung is an unsung guardian of Nepal’s southwestern plains, where floods can strike without warning and wreak havoc on communities.

Her meticulous record-keeping, performed three times daily, underpins a vital early warning system.

Yet, her indispensable work comes with little recognition and a modest government stipend.

Land under siege

Nepal, home to around 30 million people, is among the world's most vulnerable countries to the climate crisis, facing increasing threats from monsoon-triggered floods and landslides that destroy homes, farmlands, and lives.

This year alone, over 200 people have perished in such disasters, and the country ranks 20th globally in terms of flood-affected populations.

In southwestern Nepal’s Karnali basin, gauge stations initially set up to measure water discharge for water resource management were upgraded for use in early warning systems.

"These upgrades were vital for delivering timely alerts to flood-prone villages, giving residents precious hours to prepare and potentially save lives," says Bikram Rana, a project manager for Practical Action, an organisation working alongside local authorities, the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM), the Nepal Red Cross Society and Mercy Corps, an international humanitarian organisation.

He says that the system in Chisapani – nearly 600 km west of the capital Kathmandu – is integral to disaster preparedness.

"It helps build resilience to deal with residual risks," he tells TRT World.

Though the Chisapani station also has a radar sensor, manual reading is used to ensure the data is corroborated and accurate. The manual system is also important as the radar does not work in case of floods when there are power outages.

Gauge readers like Gurung, contracted by the DHM, are the backbone of the early warning system.

With simple tools and a decentralised communication network, they provide vital hours of advance notice to 74 flood-prone villages. This early warning can mean the difference between life and death for around 60,000 people, mainly farming and indigenous communities in the region.

Uttam Joshi, a former chairman of the Nepal Red Cross Society in Kailali, calls Gurung an inspiring woman who works tirelessly.

“I don't have words to describe her contribution, especially during the monsoon season,” he says. “She has risked her life to serve her community.”

Floods in Karnali now strike with an alarming regularity. A study covering the period from 2008 to 2019 found that these communities face disasters almost annually.

In 2014, three days of relentless rain caused catastrophic floods, killing 37 people, injuring seven, and damaging over 300 households.

In comparison, a flood following an unseasonal rainfall in October 2022 displaced more than 800 families but resulted in no human casualties.

The study, published in 2020 in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, found that the early warning system also helps mitigate health risks by reducing stress, preventing family disruptions, and avoiding casualties.

Households reported significant benefits, including the ability to save essential assets like grains and livestock.

According to the study, 96 percent of respondents said they could protect their property during the last flood, with many saving cash, jewellery, vehicles, livestock, and cereals, thanks to the early warnings.

At least 97 percent of those who managed to save their property believed they could have saved even more if the warning time had been extended by just one hour, the study found.

Path forged by tragedy

Gurung’s path to becoming a gauge reader was forged by tragedy. Her father, Padam Bahadur Raskoti, worked as a gauge reader for the DHM.

On August 19, 1989, Raskoti slipped and fell into the Karnali River while reading the gauge.

“We searched for him for a month but never found his body,” she recalls. Losing him was a devastating blow to her family.

Today, she makes an arduous trip through the path her father fell from, a grim reminder of the tragedy.

In the wake of her father’s death, the responsibility of supporting her family fell on Gurung’s shoulders.

“I had no choice,” she tells TRT World. She also lost her husband at a very young age.

She was hired as an apprentice to the gauge reader. She started with a meagre daily wage of 10 Nepali rupees (less than a US dollar), first measuring weather temperatures and later taking over her father’s duties as a gauge reader.

Her childhood was marked by hardship; the school in her village enrolled students only up to the first grade.

To continue her education, Gurung had to walk more than four hours through dense forests to a school in a neighbouring village.

Her family eventually rented a room for her, but she could only study up to the 10th grade before financial constraints forced her to drop out.

Lifeline to her community

Though tens of thousands depend on her work, Gurung operates from a small, one-story concrete building in the middle of a farm field.

Sitting on a wooden chair, she diligently records data in a logbook. Her cramped room holds two tables.

A flex banner explaining the early warning system is pinned on the wall. Another banner, pinned behind her desk, lists the contact details of community members from the area.

Outside the building, a weather station stands, equipped with tools to measure water levels, air pressure, and temperature.

Gurung’s job centres around monitoring these systems and sharing the data with local communities, enabling them to take precautions and prepare for potential floods.

The Chisapani monitoring station continuously tracks the water levels of the river. Once the river rises to a critical nine metres, an automatic SMS alert is sent to nearby communities.

The station uses radar-based technology to measure the water accurately, transmitting the data to a central server.

From there, the information is shared with the public via a website and SMS notifications. The station also sounds a physical alarm when water levels hit specific thresholds. These are colour-coded for clarity: yellow indicates a potential risk, while red signals imminent danger.

The early warning system, introduced in 2010 by the international development agency Practical Action and supported by other organisations, has been transformative for the flood-prone region.

Shyam Lal Chaudhary, a 42-year-old local, vividly recalls an October day in 2022 when the rising waters of the Karnali River filled him with concern. He reached out to Gurung, who warned him that water levels would continue to rise.

Soon after, sirens blared in the village of Bangaun, located in the river basin.

“By 9 pm, our settlement was inundated with floods. Around 60 people, including my family, had already moved to a safe house,” he says. At the time, the water levels in the Karnali had surged beyond 12 meters, surpassing the danger level.

While this grassroots approach has empowered communities, it has also faced its share of challenges—and critics.

In a 2018 study published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, US-based climate change researcher Sierra Gladfelter criticised the system for placing the burden on vulnerable communities.

Based on extensive fieldwork in the Karnali River basin, she argued that while these systems save lives, they can shift the responsibility for disaster preparedness from the government to local communities without addressing the deeper issues that make some people more vulnerable to disasters.

The human cost of floods

Gurung has witnessed firsthand the impacts of climate crisis.

The frequency and intensity of monsoon rains have increased, causing the Karnali River to swell beyond its banks more often and with greater ferocity.

“When I was younger, floods were a once-in-a-season event,” she says. “Now, we face floods even in October, after the end of monsoon. These unseasonal floods have become more common.”

During the monsoon, landslides and flooded rivers make the roads dangerous. In case of a big flood, Gurung has to travel to the gauge station at night, risking her life on landslide-prone roads.

In 2014, Gurung was trapped in a landslide while returning from the gauge station and had to be rescued by the police. But she is undeterred.

“I don’t feel afraid anymore; I’ve gotten used to it,” she says.

Her role has taken a personal toll, especially during the monsoon. She often panics when heavy rain persists, particularly if the water level rises above nine meters, leading to sleepless nights.

She remains vigilant, even answering calls in the middle of the night to advise the community to stay alert. “The worry that the community might not receive information on time keeps me awake at night,” she says.

Despite the emotional and physical strain, Gurung remains deeply committed to her work.

The early warning system has become central to her identity, and she hopes that younger family members will carry on her efforts. She feels a strong sense of duty rooted in her family's legacy.

“This work is something our father did. So I won’t leave it," she says. "This is my life, and it’s my duty.”

Gurung’s work may go unnoticed by most, but for the 60,000 lives she helps protect, her efforts mean everything.

As she continues her father’s work, she remains not just a gauge reader but a guardian.

(With additional reporting by Parmanand Pandey)