Nepal Puts Reconstruction Cost in the Billions After Himalayan Flood Kills Hundreds

Nepal's government says reconstruction after the August 26 Himalayan flood could cost $4 billion to $5 billion, nearly a tenth of the national economy, Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle said, describing the figure as an initial estimate, CNBC reported. That would still fall well short of the roughly $9 billion Nepal spent rebuilding after the 2015 earthquake, previously its worst recorded disaster. The disaster began with a suspected glacier collapse on Langtang Lirung that produced a tremor detected by seismometers worldwide, then sent water and debris roughly 72 kilometers down the Trishuli River and destroyed the Gyirong crossing on the border with China. Reported deaths have risen above 900, with several thousand people still missing, Al Jazeera reported. Prime Minister Balendra Shah said the flood was not an ordinary event and called for international action on climate change. The Hindu reported that India's Ministry of External Affairs has rescued 158 Indian nationals.

A second government is responding to a natural disaster with criminal law. Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune asked for the death penalty for people who deliberately start forest fires, Al Jazeera reported, after wildfires in the northeast killed at least 12 people and injured 54.

Both cases follow the same pattern. A physical disaster strikes a state with limited fiscal capacity, the losses fall almost entirely outside insurance coverage, and a political response follows within days. Nepal is asking wealthy countries to pay for reconstruction. Algeria is assigning blame domestically.