The death toll in Nepal from floods reaches 1,000

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0:31Hello there and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service. I'm Sean Lay in our studios in central London. We are very glad to have your company this hour. Five days after flash flooding swept across the border region which separates Nepal and Tibet, on Tuesday the toll of Nepalese people dead rose above 1 ,000, with almost 4 ,500 still missing. The Prime Minister, Belendra Shah, said climate change had made his country more vulnerable to disasters like this one, a message he said he would deliver to the outside world. What's implied, if not explicitly stated, is that Nepal, which has been generating much of its electricity from water power, has paid a terrible price for climate-harming emissions generated by other industrialised nations.

1:19In a moment, we'll hear from one of the scientists who's been examining satellite images from before Wednesday's flooding to see whether the disaster could, in any way, have been predicted. Rescue efforts are continuing, especially in the tunnels which had formed part of the hydroelectricity power plants, but which had become blocked by debris carried in flood water. Explosives are being used and oxygen being pumped into them, but so far only the dead have been found. Our South Asia correspondent Azadeh Moshiri reports.

1:51We've been driving from the capital Kathmandu to one of the worst affected areas, the district of Rasuwa. What you're hearing are the winding, dizzying dirt roads up the mountains of northern Nepal. The roads have only recently opened up since the floods. They're muddy, and that's because of the rains. We've seen three bulldozers so far who have clearly been working on clearing these roads up. So this is our first chance to see the state of the villagers there.

2:24That is the sound of crickets because it's now night time. We've been on the road for six hours and we've come to a full stop. We've been stuck here for about an hour and that's because of the conditions of the roads. They're so muddy, they're windy, it's narrow, and so trucks carrying aid and relief supplies are paralysed here. Andrew, let's go see what's happening. So we made it to the village of Dunce, and now this morning we're trying to make our way as close to the path of the flood and the road I'm walking on has just cut off. It's now all silt and mud and debris. And yet the villagers tell me that this road used to go all the way round the mountains to the trading village of Sia Brubesi.

3:20And yet, looking around, there's nothing left. And when I look at where the debris has fallen, the way the trees around me have been completely uprooted, the height and the power of that wall of water that day is very clear.

3:44A helicopter is arriving. It looks like it's dropping off a group of emergency workers. That's because on the other side of the Boticosi River, which flows under the road I'm on, there's an entrance to the Chilime hydropower tunnel. and there, villagers have told me, there are six workers who are trapped. They're not sure they're alive, but clearly rescue operations are ongoing. Sadly, there are hundreds of workers trapped in tunnels across northern Nepal. A man has just arrived to look over the tunnel. His name is Khonshul Bahadur Tamang and he told me that he's a computer engineer the hydro power company and that he knows the people who are trapped inside that tunnel.

4:33He comes here every few days to see whether the rescue operations are having any luck. When there is a flood or an earthquake the tunnel is the only safe place to stay but this time it wasn't safe. Rescues have been able to get 90 meters inside but they say there is a lot of mud and it's impossible to go in any further. We're back at our hotel to meet Buddha Shrestha. He's the hotel manager's friend and was working in Timore when the flood hit. We've seen videos he's captured. And in them, you see Timore's leafy mountains covered in this terrifying haze. Water is swallowing up everything in its path.

5:19He told me one of his friends was badly injured, so he rushed to help him. But it was just too late. I tried to help him but after like 20 or 30 minutes he cried a lot and then he died in my arms and after he died after 10 minutes the helicopter arrived we me and his uncle put him in the helicopter but he was no more before the helicopter all right it's evening now and the generator isn't working anymore so it's pitch black. When I think back to this past day as we've been driving and walking through these villages in Rasua every single person we've met has lost someone. Some of them were caught in the flood themselves.

6:07It just feels like that day has completely changed these communities and it's hard to imagine how long it will take them to recover. That's Azadeh Mouchiri with her latest report from Nepal. She's done a lot of extraordinary reporting for us and brought some amazing stories to our listeners. Well on NewsHour last week we heard from Jakob Steiner, a geoscientist at the University of Graz in Austria and a fellow at the Asian Mountain Academic Alliance. Jakob's been telling me that it's now clear what was the catalyst for last Wednesday's flood. It took us the last couple of days to realise that there was a glacier involved but it was not the glacier itself to have caused the failure but it was the whole mountain below the glacier that took the glacier with it and dropped many hundreds of metres below on the pro-glacial terrain there and must have picked up a lot of the water that was either in the ground or in the river to eventually and of course mix with the debris that was lying around to eventually cause this huge flood wave.

7:08The source area is very clearly visible so for us there is no doubt on where this has come from and also which major process was at play. We are still a little bit baffled by the huge amounts of water that are involved. Now we have to obviously caveat everything that process is ongoing and as you say making those extra links but nonetheless does this give us something that could usefully be applied in the area in future or not? Understanding this process and seeing now what has actually changed on the surface in the days, but maybe even years before that mountain failed, definitely helps us to piece together processes that may be useful in future in other locations.

7:53To put it very simply, were cracks visible the day before? So exactly the day before, we don't have an image, but there were on the 24th of August, so that's two days. We compare that to even, you know, about a week before, there was already a change on the surface. And there was also a change in the water that came out of the glacier, visibly discoloration. So something must have happened inside the glacier. Now, this doesn't necessarily need to be an indication of a failure ongoing. It could also just mean that there was just a lot more melt happening in these few days. But of course, it could itself mean that the additional melt input contributed at least to some degree to a failure.

8:39The cracks on the surface definitely. So there was a visible speed up in the weeks actually before the event of the glacier. So it was suddenly moving faster than it would otherwise do during this season. So, yes, there are the changes of features that look abnormal. We can't definitely say that, you know, those would have led us to be absolutely certain that something happens. You say that satellite imagery exists, presumably not for every single mountain. but would it be possible for example in in a place like nepal particularly in some of the big mountain ranges to actually be able to have some kind of monitoring system which therefore meant that if you started to see signs you wouldn't immediately say to people evacuate but you might be starting to move towards that over as you said maybe a couple of weeks before you ultimately make the decision that people have to leave as you get more and more data that's exactly what we're working towards and I can give you an example of a slightly different hazard that is a bit easier to catch.

9:45So the one that we saw a couple of days ago is just really, really hard, right? Because we don't have an apparent feature on the surface like a lake. We have seen big disasters and tragically also in this same location exactly a year ago where a big lake was draining. And actually that event led us to build a tool that is able to every week basically scan the area, whether some of these lakes have visibly changed their appearance in terms of size. and it's doing it automatically so it basically you know finds not the one needle in the haystack but it finds a couple of needles in the haystack rather than saying you have to look at each and every glacier and it lets operators to really have more a closer look with patients at a few locations where something may be amiss.

10:2820 years ago we had the Asian tsunami and as a result of that quite a sophisticated early warning system has been installed in in many of those countries which would give people enough time to get to higher land when something is happening. But sea surges are in some ways a lot easier to spot than something like this. Is it possible that we could use the technology we have, the satellite cover, the use of potentially artificial intelligence to develop something that could do that? I mean, we're really hoping to do it. I think the in-situ setup, so where we have sensors in the location that are measuring changes, is still is not something to discount and we should still we should still consider that it's just that the sheer size of the area and the sheer number of potentially dangerous locations is far too difficult to deal with for human beings and then we also are faced with i mean we have all now seen the dimensions of this event it took everything with it it took all the the measurement stations it took all the sensors in that valley with it so there was nothing left you could end with a false sense of confidence that actually didn't deliver on the day.

11:37And this is one of the two dangerous things. One is that, the false sense of confidence. And this has happened in cases before. So we had cases in Pakistan, for example, where an early warning system was installed and people were saying, OK, great, now we don't have to worry anymore. Next year, they still died. And what happened was that the solar panel had been stolen. And so the sensor didn't work. And of course, then you have a huge problem that there is mistrust in the population and the technology that had been supplied. And the second problem are false positives that you are telling people that they have to go to higher ground and you're telling them that perhaps five times in a row where actually nothing happens.

12:14And at one point they're going to say, well, just because you went to university apparently doesn't mean that you know your job. So perhaps don't tell us what to do. And then they are not going to trust you in the future anymore. The Prime Minister has asked you and your colleagues to look at exactly what happened. And what sort of work are you trying to do to help the government? To them, I think the most important aspect is to showcase the technology that what we are doing here, we're doing this with openly accessible imagery as well. We are not using secret shoes. Our secret shoes is our expertise, yes.

12:44But the material we use to look at this is just as much available to the government employees that work in these agencies. But then, of course, also provide a little bit of material for them to go on the stage and tell everyone who is responsible for climate change, which means all of us, that Nepal is dealing with this. And it also needs support to deal with it because it can't do it alone. That is Jakob Steiner, Geo Scientist and Fellow at the Asian Mountain Academic Alliance. He was talking to NewsHour on the BBC World Service.

13:27Coming up, six million Afghans who left their country have been forced to return home in recent years. Many fear life under the Taliban. We have a special report from the border with Pakistan. I feel that my life is under threat. I do not believe in their amnesty at all. I have no trust in it because many of my friends were killed. Our headlines this hour. US military has carried out more airstrikes against Iran Iran says it's now retaliating. Germany has accused Russia of carrying out a string of hybrid attacks on infrastructure across Europe. It's ordered the closure of a Russian continent and cultural centre as a result.

14:05And Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney says the United States should stop doing memes and start getting serious to allow meaningful talks on a trade deal to restart.

14:26This is NewsHour coming to you live from the BBC studios in London with me, Sean Lay. Sarah Netanyahu, the wife of Israel's Prime Minister, has accused the leader of the main opposition bloc of being aware of Hamas' plan to attack Israel before it took place. Mrs Netanyahu told a TV interview on Monday, the Yair Golan, Deputy Military Chief of Staff at the time, was, quote, already dressed and ready at dawn, while others knew nothing, including, she said, Benjamin, her husband. Mr Golan, as a retired Major General who now leads the Democrats, what was once the Labour Party under the old system in Israel, has demanded a public apology.

15:03Meanwhile, Gadi Eisencott, a former army chief, who's the front-runner to challenge the Prime Minister, said the remarks were, quote, intended only to stoke hatred and perpetuate Netanyahu's rule. Tal Schneider is a political correspondent at the Times of Israel I'll ask to first whether Sarah Netanyahu's remarks were surprising. Yes, they were somewhat surprising because these conspiracy theories has been floating around the prime minister for a while, but they tried to avoid because Yair Golan was actually a hero going into the fire on the massacre morning and saving people's life and confronting him in such a way.

15:41It's a bizarre situation because, you know, the prime minister, he tries to avoid mentioning the massacre because it seemed to be blamed and he wants to be, you know, nowhere around talking about the massacre. But now his wife and himself are bringing the massacre into the front line of the campaign. And it's weird that they want this to be, you know, the Israeli public to be engaged in that. And also all of the media is full of reports of how Yair Golan saved kids, you know, young people's life from the music festival that day. He actually pulled people from the fire. How would you characterize the tone, the mood of this election campaign, as well as its importance to Israel?

16:26It's highly important. The mood is very, very tense. The Israeli people are desperate for a different leadership because the current leadership denies any connection to the massacre. They take, you know, it's not our responsibility. I mean, the prime minister actually says out loud, if no one woke me up at the middle of the night and if someone would woke me up, everything would be avoided, which is, you know, it's a crazy notion to think that, you know, only by a wake up call. And I mean, he was walking up at 6.30 a.m., but obviously Yair Golan, the opponent, at the same time was also walking up and running towards the fire, whereas Netanyahu was already convening his advisor to, you know, make his political scheme how to avoid any responsibility.

17:13So I think the Israeli people sense that this government is completely dysfunctional and they hope for a better future. So, I mean, very, very difficult campaign for everybody. Just in terms of Israeli politics, it uses a relatively pure form of proportional representation. So the election, in a sense, the election result was almost the first stage, not the last stage of the process, because then we have the attempts to form coalitions which can take months. The Prime Minister has talked about forming a broad government and one prominent politician, Lee Spenny Gantz, seems open to that idea. Is there a prospect that Mr Netanyahu could, after this election, ditch some of his more what one might call fringe cabinet colleagues and find some alternative arrangement that kept him in office?

18:03No. So Netanyahu has his coalition partners at the moment, as you mentioned, they are very, very extreme right wing people. According to Netanyahu himself, he wants to continue with them and broaden the coalition with someone else who may be more moderate, like one person. You know, and when you mentioned Benny Gantz, Benny Gantz doesn't cross the threshold, meaning when Netanyahu talks about broadening it, he wants to bring some, you know, like a fifth wheel. He wants his next government to be on the same extreme pathway, plus one person who may give him sort of legitimacy around the world. And this is something that the Israeli left and center and, you know, right now, the majority of the people, according to the polls, are totally rejecting.

18:51because Netanyahu currently, as you mentioned, he needs to bring coalition partners. But according to all of the numbers, it doesn't have enough of the numbers of a coalition partners to set up a government. If that will stay until October 27th, then he will not be the next prime minister. That's Tal Schneider from the Times of Israel. This is NewsHour from the BBC World Service. Get more with BBC podcasts wherever you listen. Be the first to listen to your favourite shows like Evil Genius, Good Bad Billionaire and You're Dead to Me with a subscription to BBC Podcasts Premium on Apple Podcasts.

19:29You can also enjoy a range of our podcasts ad-free with an Amazon Music subscription.

19:39Think electric vehicle and you probably think of the brand Tesla from the United States. But the biggest exporter of EVs, as they're known, is China. It may be largely shut out of the American market, but that hasn't stopped it achieving dominance, producing cars cheaply. Business Daily's Felicity Hanna has been following the money from the factory floor to the car showroom. Here we are. It plays a little tune every time you get in. It's very cheery. Very cheery. It's a little welcome to your car. This is Emma, and she's not the only driver who wanted an electric vehicle and opted for a Chinese model.

20:16So I chose an EV primarily for the sustainability, but also, to be honest, for the fact that they are just so cheap. 18 % of electric vehicles, or EVs, sold in the UK are manufactured in China. In Western Europe, it's also hitting a record high. Andy Palmer has been described as the godfather of EVs for his work at Nissan on the Leaf, and he now runs the consultancy Palmer Automotive. They've got this advantage in battery technology and they've got this advantage in software technology. The interesting thing is about 91 % of the materials that go into batteries are refined in China. So they really have the supply chain sewn up.

20:58If you look at making an EV and you exclude the battery and let's exclude the fuel tank just to be fair on an internal combustion engine, the cost of manufacturing an EV is lower. except for the battery. The battery technology is key. So they're cheap, they're innovative, but are they ethical? A frequent criticism of Chinese car manufacturers is that the quality, innovation and price competitiveness has only been possible because of the support provided by Beijing. Some argue that China is effectively dumping state-subsidised vehicles in the EU and the UK in order to gain market share and that these prices would not be sustainable.

21:38While that is an accusation, however, that has been strongly disputed by the car makers themselves, Dr. Brian Gu is co-president of the Chinese EV maker Xpeng. I don't think the Chinese government is supporting every player. In fact, there are probably more competitors in China than outside of China. I would say the Chinese company's success is because they came out of the most competitive market, I would say the fittest gym, using that analogy, and bring that technology, the efficiency and the cost competitiveness to markets outside of China. So do you think that those accusations that Chinese EV makers are dumping vehicles are genuine concerns from those governments?

22:17We don't agree with the assessment that China is producing excess capacity. In fact, we don't have enough capacity in China to produce and satisfy our demands. So I would say these accusations are unfounded. European governments are understandably anxious about their homegrown car makers and their workforces. It's a concern shared by the US, which has levelled tariffs of 100 % on Chinese-made vehicles. The question is whether drivers will share those concerns, or if they simply want to get behind the wheel of a much cheaper car. Felicity Hanna. More from Business Daily at bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

23:07You're listening to NewsHour, coming to you live from the BBC studios in central London with me, Sean Lay. Now, we begin the second half of NewsHour with a special report on the plight of hundreds of thousands of Afghans who had left the country, crossing into Iran and Pakistan as refugees or to go to work. More than six million Afghans in all have been sent back to their home country since 2023. But as the numbers leaving Afghanistan rose, especially in the five years since the Taliban returned to power, so the governments in Islamabad and Tehran stepped up deportation efforts. Next week will be the 25th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks on the United States.

23:47That led to the international invasion of Afghanistan and the collapse of the Taliban regime. Our chief international correspondent, Lisa Doucette, spent part of Tuesday at the main border crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan. At Torquem, she heard stories from many Afghans who are fearing deportation. Lisa Doucette has been speaking to New South's Ruchini Vaidanaathan. What a stark reminder of how far Afghanistan has fallen under the world's radar. This was the country which was at the top of the intray for foreign ministers the world over, the highest percentage of aid per capita in any country in the world.

24:25And now over the past three years, you've had a staggering six million people. That's the size of a small or a medium-sized country going into another country that is already reeling from multiple crises, being slammed by climate change, steep cuts in foreign aid. And of course, for the women and girls who are leaving Pakistan and Iran, it means they're going to a place where they're not going to be able to continue their education. Both Pakistan and Iran say it's past time for them to go home. So we went to the main border crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan at Torkom to see what it's like there.

25:06They call this zero point. It's the main crossing between Pakistan, about 50 metres away, and Afghanistan. And there's a tide of Afghan families coming through these metal gates. A woman with a goat on a rope, a man with a huge suitcase on his head, and three little girls, each of them carrying a rooster or a chicken. Entire families, many generations, who've grown up on the other side, spending decades there and coming back to a country many have never even been to before.

25:47The journey was very difficult. My husband had been deported 20 days earlier and I had to borrow money from several people to make the journey. I have never been to Afghanistan before. What do you say to the Pakistanis? We spent many good years there and lived well, but this year the Pakistanis caused us a great deal of hardship. They would not allow my husband to work. There was work available, but he was afraid to go because the police might arrest him. Every Afghan family we speak with speaks about being mistreated by the Pakistanis. We can't confirm that right here. But Pakistan has been saying that it's given refuge to millions of Afghans for decades, through all of its wars.

26:40And it's time for the Afghans to go home. We're looking into this makeshift office, Taliban flags everywhere. Then from here, those who have documents can go on to the United Nations. And then they'll be given a refuge, human hopes for just a few days, in a tented village nearby.

27:07What's your name? How many in your family have been forced to come back to Afghanistan? I have seven brothers, my sister-in-law, their children, my children, all of us. And what about your future? Can you start over again here? The problem here is that there are no business or job opportunities in Afghanistan these days. However, I will do whatever work I can find. And some of you, are you worried that some of your daughters, some of your nieces won't be able to go to school in Afghanistan? Of course I am worried. They need an education. They should have the opportunity to become doctors, engineers or whatever they choose to be in the future.