Crossing from Tibet into Nepal close to this date in 2019 I was taken aside by Chinese border authorities for polite questioning in the modern and imposing border post at Gyirong Port. Seven years later, there are no adequate words to describe the feeling of watching videos of the entire structure and everyone in the vicinity being swept away in a few terrifying moments on 26 August this year.
Hubris
In 2019 our little party of five, along with Nepali and Tibetan guides and a driver, had taken a memorable road-trip through Tibet, culminating in what is said to be the world’s highest pilgrimage, the kora circuit around Mount Kailash. Like many pilgrims, we were heading back to Kathmandu through the still-new border crossing at Gyirong (Tibetans call it Kerung). Entering the Chinese border post after saying goodbye to our Tibetan colleagues I was taken aside, which wasn’t really a surprise. I had been similarly singled out three weeks earlier when we had flown into Lhasa, and even before that, while we were still in Kathmandu, when my visa application took much longer to get approved than those of my companions, and only then at the last moment.
Although the questions were mostly about the multiple Chinese and Pakistani stamps in my passport, I suspect that – China being the efficient surveillance state it is – this was more about the fact that I was politely declining invitations to participate in any event sponsored by the Chinese government during the “Meng Wanzhou Affair” until the two Canadian hostages were released. Nonetheless, I have always been fond of Chinese culture and an advocate for warm people-to-people relationships, so I suspect this was just a subtle reminder to watch my step during and after visits to sensitive areas like Tibet.
After crossing to the Nepal side with no further incident we checked in to the nearby Riverview Hotel for the night.
The next morning we left for Kathmandu in a couple of Land Rovers, but it took some four hours to cover less than 20 kilometres because heavy rain had triggered two avalanches in succession.
Mindful of having flights home to catch, we agreed to call for a helicopter to pick us up from a field beside the Noryang backpacker hotel in the village of Syabrubeshi.
Heartbreak
At 08:44 Nepali time (10:59 Chinese) on the morning of 26 August this year, local people, traders, pilgrims and travellers like us were going about their business at Gyirong when a fearsome wall of water, mud and rock overwhelmed the border crossing. The height of a six-storey building, moving at an estimated 19 metres (62 feet) per second, it offered no chance of escape for those in its path. A webcam nearby captured the horror of futile attempts to flee the inevitable.
There is still some scientific debate on details, but what is certain is that vibrations which seismographs detected at the time were not an earthquake but rather the flank of a mountain giving way, plunging the rock and overlying glacier about 1.200 vertical metres (4,000 feet) into the river below, becoming a fast-moving mass of rock, mud and water. Sweeping downstream, it scoured the walls of the Trishuli valley, past Syabrubeshi ( Syapru Besi) where it appears from satellite photographs that our helicopter landing zone and the Noryang hotel were also completely swept away. Comparing a photo that I took in 2019 to a post-flood picture from the Kathmandu Post shows how the flood scoured the sides of the valley and the roads that ran along it.
The full death toll may never be known for sure and the number of missing will remain uncertain. Bodies and body parts were recovered more than 200 kilometres downstream. As of today, 35 days after the disaster, Nepal reports 1,453 confirmed deaths with 5,285 missing and out of contact, at least 636 of those being foreign nationals from 39 countries (including 32 from Canada). The figures from China are less certain.
Humility
In 2019 I recorded my impressions of Gyirong Port seen from the Nepali side. It put me in mind of the sort of imperial edifice that the Middle Kingdom of ancient China would have built to inspire awe and respect from tribute-bearing barbarians. Except, of course, Tibet was not part of imperial China. To the peoples of ancient times Gyirong was a liminal place where traders and pilgrims going either way made the transition between the thick, warm air of lush forested river valleys, and the thin, cool air of the dry, dun, landscape of the Tibetan Plateau.
It’s in the nature of ambitious imperial powers to attempt to awe and dominate their neighbours. But empires do not last, and human arrogance and pretension are pretty insignificant in the larger scheme of things – witness before and after aerial photographs of where an imposing border post used to be.
“In the fight between you and the world, back the world”
Franz Kafka
Pictures
The 2019 pictures are mine. The header picture of Gyirong Port in 2019 is from Wikimedia Commons, as is the screengrab and video of the flood overwhelming Gyirong. The final aerial photo is from Volunteers Initiative Nepal.