Flooding tragedy in Nepal is a reminder that life and death are unpredictable

Unbelievable. Yet utterly believable.

Those were my contrasting feelings when I saw videos of the flooding in Nepal and Tibet caused by the collapse of a massive glacier, almost certainly due to global warming.

Flooding is a wholly inadequate word to describe this tragedy. As is mudslide. What crashed down the river valley at an estimated speed of up to 189 mph was a mixture of water, rock, ice, mud, and whatever got carried along by the deadly slurry.

I was transfixed by videos I saw on Facebook reels. I couldn’t stop watching them. Until I realized that I was almost becoming physically ill from the videos, they were so disturbing.

This You Tube video starts off with images of the massive wall of water that coursed out of the Himalayas. Not at all pleasant viewing. Yet fascinating — a real life horror show.

For me, the most disturbing images were the people frantically running to escape the sudden flood. Likely all of them died. The large building at the start of the video is a border crossing between Nepal and Tibet, which is controlled by China. The wall of water crashed over the building almost as if it wasn’t there.

This tragedy couldn’t have been predicted, according to a New York Times story.

It was a wall of water and mud traveling at such speed that it engulfed buildings in seconds. In the wake of the Nepal flood disaster, questions were being asked about whether the deadly torrent could have been predicted or detected quicker to give communities downstream more time to evacuate.

Geologists say they believe the flash floods in Nepal and Tibet were set off by a dual high-altitude landslide and glacial avalanche that unleashed huge volumes of water. Disaster experts say such events are difficult to forecast.

The weather was pleasant. No storms. Just a nice August day. Several thousand people appear to have been killed in the disaster. Probably none of them woke up and thought, “This is the day I will die.” But they did. Because life and death are inherently uncertain. Which makes every day we’re alive precious.

Quite a few spiritual pilgrims died. Here’s excerpts from “Pilgrims seeking peace caught in deadly Nepal-Tibet floods.”

BIDUR, Nepal – They came to the Himalayas seeking spiritual renewal, drawn by Tibet’s sacred, snow-capped Mount Kailash. Instead, many pilgrims were caught in deadly floods that tore through the Nepal-Tibet region, wiping out entire villages.

“I saw two buses carrying Indian pilgrims to Kailash Mansarovar,” said 27-year-old Laloma, a Nepali mother.

She was rescued on Aug 27 from Nepal’s devastated area of Syabrubesi, along with her infant son and husband, after sheltering for a freezing night in a school. The buses were swept away, she said.

“They are all gone,” she told AFP.

Mount Kailash is sacred to Hindus, Buddhists and Jains. Hindus regard Kailash as the abode of deities Shiva and Parvati, while Tibetan Buddhists associate it with Mount Meru, which they say is the centre of the universe.

It is forbidden to climb the 6,638m mountain. Instead, pilgrims undertake a roughly 52km contemplative circuit around its base, taking most walkers about three days.

…Indian spiritual leader Sadhguru in 2025 led devotees to Kailash, an annual pilgrimage growing in popularity, especially among Indians.

Thousands of Indians are reported to have undertaken the pilgrimage in 2026, as well as Hindus from other nations.

Sadhguru’s “sacred walks”, organised by his Isha Foundation, promised a journey to a place “of divine connection, where the veil between the physical and spiritual is thin”.

On Aug 27, he wept as he described his frantic calls to missing devotees, in a video message posted from Tibet to his several million followers.

Some 77 pilgrims were at the Nepal-China border office when floodwaters swept through the centre on Aug 26, he said in a post, alongside a terrifying video from the Chinese side of the frontier, when a wall of mud and debris crashed over the building.

“Literally, the entire group was there in the building, this is a terrible and extraordinary event,” he said, as anguished wails from other pilgrims with him were heard over the video.

“All of us, including the volunteers and support teams are deeply anguished,” the Hindu guru, whose real name is Jagdish Vasudev, added.

“To the families and loved ones of those in our group and hundreds of others who are affected in the region, I share your pain.”

“All phones are off, telecommunications are down, roads are blocked, we are unable to go there,” he said, tears in his eyes.

It didn’t matter if someone was a religious believer or an atheist. It didn’t matter if someone was on a spiritual quest or just there to enjoy the scenery. It didn’t matter if someone was a long-time resident of the area or was visiting for the first time.

What mattered was that circumstances led them to be in the path of the unexpected flood, so they died. There will be attempts to find meaning in those many deaths. That’s totally understandable. It can be comforting to believe that a death was God’s plan, or that a person died doing what they loved.

But in the end… there’s just The End. It will come to all of us. Often unexpectedly. So let’s smile as best we can, while mourning the deaths of those caught in the flooding. Life goes on. Until it doesn’t.