27/08/2026
Nepal has held a special place in my heart since spending time there in 2024.
Kathmandu. Yoga. The people I met. The Himalayas: those extraordinary mountains that make you realise just how small we are in the landscape around us.
Seeing the devastation caused by the flash floods affecting Nepal and Tibet is heartbreaking.
Lives have been lost. Families have lost their homes and livelihoods, and many people are still missing — children, parents, loved ones, as well as travellers from around the world who came to this extraordinary part of the world drawn by its nature and mighty mountains.
My thoughts are with all those affected, across Nepal and Tibet, and with everyone still waiting for news of someone they love.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s The World at One, Kabita Dhungana, deputy mayor of Nuwakot, one of the affected districts in Nepal, put the situation in the simplest and most urgent terms:
“Please help us.”
She spoke of family members, children and parents still missing, and of communities where even basic necessities have been destroyed.
There is also a wider reality that is difficult to ignore. Climate change is reshaping the Himalayas — affecting glaciers, water systems and weather patterns — and increasing the vulnerability of communities living in one of the most extraordinary, but also increasingly fragile, mountain environments on Earth.
I’ve made a donation to the Red Cross response, and I’m sharing this in the hope that others might join me.
Every contribution can help provide clean water, shelter, first aid and essential supplies to people who urgently need them.
→ Donate to the Nepal emergency response through the IFRC Red Cross / Red Crescent:
https://donate.redcrossredcrescent.org/ifrc/nepal-flash-floods/~my-donation
For everyone who calls these mountains home, and everyone who travelled there seeking their beauty, solitude and wonder — my thoughts are with you.
