Storms between September 24 and 27, 2026, brought torrential rains to Nepal’s Lumbini and Gandaki provinces, triggering landslides and causing record flooding in the Gandak River. The deluge, occurring late in the monsoon season, resulted in widespread damage, displacing thousands and impacting hundreds of villages.
Floodwaters from the river inundated farmland and settlements, with embankments breached in various areas. Data from Nepal’s Department of Hydrology and Meteorology indicated a record river level of 11.94 meters in Devghāṭ as of September 27, the highest since record-keeping began in the 1960s. The flooding affected areas like Bagaha and Areraj in India.
NASA’s MODIS satellite imagery captured the extent of the flooding, showing significant changes between images taken before and after the rains. Seasonal fields were submerged, and while flooding is common in low-lying areas, the impact on settled regions was profound.
Numerous resources, tools, and datasets from NASA are available to monitor flooding events, such as the Worldview and FLOOD Viewer applications.
For further information, various news articles report on the impact of the storms and floods.
