Nepal – Tibet flood catastrophe: Search for thousands of missing people continues

 

Three days after a massive wall of water and debris tore through a Himalayan valley on the Nepal-China border, rescue teams are still searching for hundreds of missing people. Entire villages have been wiped away, survivors are mourning loved ones and wondering how to rebuild their lives. DW's Adil Bhat is reporting from the disaster zone and joins us with the latest on the rescue effort and the growing questions about what caused the deadly collapse.

The Widows of Everest

 

We travel to Nepal to meet the Sherpa women defying tradition to conquer the world’s highest mountain.

Mount Everest is the ultimate mountaineering challenge. Climbers come from around the world seeking glory, but for those helping them scale the world’s highest peak, it can be deadly work.

Sherpa men die in disproportionate numbers, leaving behind widows who struggle to survive. Forced to become breadwinners, some women are defying tradition by breaking into the male-dominated world of Himalayan climbing.

Nepal has highest Covid transmission rate in world

Nepal managed to escape the first Covid wave without any serious damage. But the second coronavirus wave has been devastating.
 

Nepal sees explosion in COVID-19 cases | DW News

 International aid is now flowing in to support overwhelmed hospitals in India. The country has been hit hard by a new variant. Neighbouring Nepal is also struggling to contain an explosion in cases.

Why Mount Everest's height keeps changing

In December of 2020, China and Nepal made a joint announcement about a new measurement for Mount Everest: 8,849 meters.
 

Nepal's Fake Orphans

Nepal's orphanages attract donations from around the world, but some are exploiting children for profit.

In the remote villages scattered throughout the Himalayas, opportunities for children are rare. So when an aunt offered to take 10-year-old Devi to the bustling capital, Kathmandu, to attend school, her mother readily agreed.

What awaited Devi was not the opportunity of a lifetime, but misery and despair.

Her aunt handed her over to an illegal orphanage. Devi had become one of Nepal's fake orphans.

Nepal's Mighty Gurkhas

As thousands of young Nepalese men battle through grueling physical tests, we discover what it takes to become a Gurkha.

Every year, thousands of young Nepalese men endure gruelling physical training, punishing runs and relentless scrutiny for what they see as a chance of a lifetime - the opportunity to become a Gurkha soldier in the British Army.

Only 432 will make it.

For boys from remote mountain villages, it can be a pathway out of poverty - not just for them, but for their entire families.

But first, they must survive a brutal selection process.

Everest: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

Nepal's Children at Risk

Investigating rising fears that Nepal has become a target for paedophiles acting under the cover of aid work.

Thousands of foreigners come to Nepal each year, offering to help children living in poverty.

Some provide money, others work for aid organisations or even set up charities.

But police say some come for more sinister purposes.

A rising number of foreigners have been arrested for allegedly sexually abusing children in recent months.

Nepal: The Great Plunder

Investigating how antiquities stolen from the Himalayas end up in museums and private collections around the world.

On the global art market, Himalayan statues of religious deities fetch millions of dollars. But to the Nepalese, they are living gods who have been stolen from their communities.

In this exclusive Al Jazeera investigation, 101 East senior presenter and reporter Steve Chao takes viewers on a breathtaking journey across the Himalayas, to reveal how the art world's hunger for ancient artefacts is destroying a centuries-old culture.

As he seeks to expose the international black market in religious treasures, Chao travels across Nepal from its capital Kathmandu to remote and ancient Buddhist temples in Mustang.

Building a border at 4,600 meters

For thousands of years, humans have drawn lines on the earth, dividing the planet into nations. But there are some parts of the world that no empire, nation or state has been able to tame.

Urmila: Saving Girls from Slavery in Nepal (video)

A former slave fights for the rights of girls sold into slavery while pursuing her own dream of becoming a lawyer.

Urmila Chaudhary wants to change Nepal. The 23-year-old woman fights against centuries-old social structures with one goal: to end child slavery in her country.

At the age of six, Urmila's family sold her to become a household slave, or kamlari, in the Nepali capital of Kathmandu. Every year, her parents received money from her enslavers, for whom Urmila had to work up to 15 hours every day.

Urmila was freed at age 17. Now, she is on a quest for justice. Together with her fellow campaigners, she frees girls from captivity, makes demands of the prime minister to end slavery, holds press conferences and travels internationally.

Rewind: Daughters of the Brothel

Raised in a brothel, Naseema founded an NGO to fight for the rights of sex workers in a village in northeast India.

Chatrubhuj Sthan in Bihar Province, eastern India has more than 3,000 sex workers who ply the oldest profession in the world. 

In the face of the extreme legal and social discrimination experienced by the prostitutes, a group of intrepid women, who themselves grew up in brothels, set up a workers' rights organisation - Parcham (meaning flag).

They offer women an opportunity to seek other forms of income, provide education for their children and work constantly to close down sex-trafficking routes.

Gurkha School

Behind the scenes at Nepal's Gurkha recruitment camp as young men compete to join the elite British army brigade.



In 1815, British authority in India was put to severe test by the forces of an expanding Nepali state.

Impressed by their art of hill warfare and tenacity, Britain began recruiting Nepalis for a special elite brigade. Over 220,000 Gurkhas fought for Britain in World War I and II; over 40,000 were casualties.

For many Nepalis, service in the British army is a strong family tradition, but competition to join is fierce. Every year, many thousand Nepalis compete for the few places to become a Gurkha.

This film offers a broad perspective on a 200-year-old military tradition that still provides status to young Nepalese men who strive to join an elite British army brigade in the Himalayan region.

Nepal: After the Earthquake

We return to Nepal to find out how people have endured the aftermath of one of the nation's deadliest natural disasters.

The trembling began just before noon. Suddenly, violent jolts reduced buildings to smithereens, burying residents under the rubble.

The devastation caused by the worst earthquake to hit Nepal in 80 years was catastrophic - more than 8,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands left homeless.

One year on, many of those who survived still live in makeshift shelters. Some have gone into debt to pay for medical care. Many are demanding to know why the government is not doing more to help.

Nepal's Unsung Hero

101 East follows one man's mission to restore hope to survivors of Nepal's worst natural disaster in recent history.


Jigme Sherpa's phone will not stop ringing. Since a 7.8 magnitude earthquake devastated Nepal, the young teacher has been leading a relief campaign to provide help.

His plea on social media for urgent aid has him answering calls around the clock, making arduous journeys up remote mountain roads to deliver supplies to his students' villages in the worst-hit district of Sindhupalchok.

For many survivors, such civilian efforts are the only help they have. Political instability is hampering government and international aid.

Pictures From The Earthquake In Nepal

Gurkha School

Behind the scenes at Nepal's Gurkha recruitment camp as young men compete to join the elite British army brigade.


In 1815, British authority in India was put to severe test by the forces of an expanding Nepali state.

Impressed by their art of hill warfare and tenacity, Britain began recruiting Nepalis for a special elite brigade. Over 220,000 Gurkhas fought for Britain in World War I and II; over 40,000 were casualties.

For many Nepalis, service in the British army is a strong family tradition, but competition to join is fierce. Every year, many thousand Nepalis compete for the few places to become a Gurkha.

This film offers a broad perspective on a 200-year-old military tradition that still provides status to young Nepalese men who strive to join an elite British army brigade in the Himalayan region.

The Disillusioned Soldier

The Maoist liberation war was meant to change Nepal, but for many former fighters realities do not match their dream.

By Subina Shrestha

Nepal's decade long conflict now feels like a distant memory. Up until 2006, every day brought news of the death of civilians, Maoists, policemen and soldiers. Although Kathmandu was hardly affected, the mood there was tense. The endless queues at checkpoints reminded people of the war raging in the countryside.

"What do the Maoists look like?" my grandmother used to ask. For those in the city, the rebels could have been space aliens.

The Maoist revolution was largely motivated by long-standing and extreme abuse and exploitation of poor rural people by a small, landowning elite. An upper-middle-class friend of mine, whom I used to tease for being a "feudalist”, admitted to me that he knew people who had raped Tharu (indigenous) women and thought little of it. But although he empathised with those who joined the revolution, he could not bear the thought that his privileges might come to an end if the revolution was successful.