Nepal’s 2026 flood disaster exposes colonial climate science gaps and Himalayan vulnerability to extractive development

Indigenous Sherpa and Tamang communities have long documented glacial instability through oral histories and local observation networks, yet their knowledge has been sidelined in favor of Western scientific models. The 2015 Langtang avalanche, which killed hundreds, was predicted by local herders but ignored by international disaster agencies. This erasure of Indigenous early-warning systems is not just a knowledge gap but a structural violence that repeats in Nepal’s disaster response. The failure to integrate these systems reflects a broader pattern of epistemic colonialism, where local ecological knowledge is treated as anecdotal rather than rigorous.