On Saturday, a widely-circulated video on social media showed a Nepali Army search team navigating a tunnel of the Upper Trishuli Hydroelectricity Project-1 to locate trapped workers. As they moved inside the tunnel, they blew whistles and relied entirely on the small beams of their smartphone flashlights.

The video sparked immediate online conversation. “Without proper equipment, in the faint light of a mobile phone?” commented social media user Irsad Ansari. Many others echoed his disbelief, asking how complex subterranean rescue operations could succeed without specialised industrial lighting, heavy demolition tools, and advanced tunneling and protective equipment.

When the flash floods struck several settlements in central Nepal on Wednesday morning, the disaster caught many, including security agencies, off guard. The floods, which have left over 794 persons dead and thousands missing as of Sunday evening, have stretched thin the country’s resources, with state agencies and facilities scrambling to respond to the sheer scale of the disaster. In its aftermath, the disaster, the country’s deadliest in a decade, has exposed a striking gap in the country’s emergency response technologies.

While government agencies are increasingly using digital portals, drones, GIS, satellite images and artificial intelligence to collect and share information, rescuers on the ground lack enough specialised equipment to reach people trapped under mud and debris.

State agencies, including the Prime Minister’s Office, the Nepali Army, Nepal Police and the national disaster management authority (NDRRMA), have launched extensive information drives across social media platforms, emergency SMS broadcasts, regular updates, mobile ringtone alerts, and specialised applications. Independent tech groups and civic initiatives have rolled out digital mapping tools, tracing scripts, and open-source data repositories to track missing individuals and compile disaster and relief statistics.

Yet, as the death toll rises and survivors remain isolated, technical analysts, emergency responders, and affected citizens point out a stark contrast between the country’s polished digital communication strategy and its woefully underdeveloped physical search, rescue, preparedness, and early warning infrastructure technologies.

The government, formed through an overwhelming public mandate after last year’s Gen Z protests, has attempted to project a modern, ‘smart’ response through extensive social media engagements, digital maps and online dashboards. But these efforts have failed to translate into tangible assistance on the ground, critics argue. Public frustration has mounted into a familiar refrain across affected communities: The government is active on social media, but absent in society; it lives in the cloud, but fails on the ground.

The government has activated several tech-driven coordination systems. The Ministry of Home Affairs and NDRRMA, in collaboration with the Department of Roads, recently launched the ‘Setu Rapid’ portal. The platform aims to integrate field rescuers, regional command posts, and heavy equipment operators onto a single live map.

Similarly, the Prime Minister’s Office established an integrated emergency assistance portal to process rescue requests, log missing persons’ reports, and track relief supply distributions. Emergency communications are also being funneled through the National Emergency Operation Centre, the Flood Forecasting Division, and NDRRMA’s dedicated hotline (1234).

To streamline relief donations, the government has set up integrated QR code payments through platforms like Nepal Clearing House Limited, ConnectIPS, eSewa and major commercial banking applications. Authorities have urged the public to donate solely through official channels, warning against unverified QR codes circulating online.

Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation Mahabir Pun says that the government is utilising available digital tools to the fullest extent for search, rescue and rebuilding.

“We are currently working alongside a dedicated team of young IT professionals and artificial intelligence specialists to collect and process critical damage data,” Pun told Kantipur.

Security forces say that advanced rescue teams have been deployed to the affected zones. Netra Bahadur Karki, spokesperson for the Armed Police Force, said that specialised personnel including live detection equipment operators, drone squads, rope rescue teams, swift-water divers, and collapsed-structure search teams are actively working in the field.

Nepali Army spokesperson Rajaram Basnet added that heavy physical breaching tools, such as demolition hammers, rotary hammers, and helicopter rescue baskets, are being utilised where feasible.

To assess the damage across devastated swathes of Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading districts, civil tech groups have stepped in to assist state agencies.

Bikas Krochme Gurung, an engineer and president of the Robotics Association of Nepal, said that his organisation’s Drone Rapid Response Team is deploying aerial photography, thermal imaging and LiDAR sensors to map devastated areas.

“Where landslides have completely washed away highways and bridges, drones have proven crucial for measuring the distance between severed riverbanks, assessing erosion depth, and analysing mudflow density,” Gurung said. “We are sending geo-referenced data directly to the NDRRMA and the home ministry to help prioritise immediate rescue missions. Currently, between 80 and 100 trained drone pilots are on standby across the country.”

According to Gurung, the Drone Federation of India and Indian security forces have offered to supply additional drone units. However, because low-altitude drone operations can interfere with air traffic, aerial drone missions are being strictly managed alongside emergency military helicopters, which are currently dedicated exclusively to airlifting trapped survivors rather than dropping relief supplies.

Observers say that while those working on the tech front and security personnel on the ground deserve praise for working tirelessly, seeing soldiers clearing tons of thick mud and retrieving bodies with their bare hands proves that Nepal lacks a resilient disaster management system.

The stark operational contrast is visible across the border. In neighbouring China, advanced heavy-lift drones capable of carrying humans have been deployed during flood rescues. In Nepal, however, hydro-project workers have remained trapped inside dark water tunnels for five consecutive days due to a total lack of subterranean breaching equipment.

“We still suffer from a critical lack of high-level technology and unified data,” Gurung said. “We do not possess specialised machinery to break into tunnels, nor do we have redundant emergency communication systems.”

Nationwide, Nepal only has four or five drones capable of lifting payloads between 5 and 20 kilograms, Gurung said. “In times like this, the vital importance of satellite internet and heavy rescue hardware becomes painfully obvious.”

Technical analysts also stress that the failure of early warning systems directly caused the heavy loss of life. Neither the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology nor NDRRMA managed to deliver timely, precise warnings to at-risk communities before floodwaters hit.

Analysts often point to the Koshi Barrage as a functional contrast, where continuous water-level telemetry stretching from the upper Koshi basin down to Barahakshetra allows authorities to issue timely warnings. Yet, such monitoring networks remain missing across the torrential rivers of central Nepal.

Meanwhile, Rajib Subba, an IT expert and current Election Commissioner, warned that the proliferation of uncoordinated digital forms and competing web portals across various government ministries could backfire, leading to data duplication and operational confusion.

“Government teams are working hard with the limited tools they have, but systemic preparation should have happened long before,” Subba said. “Collecting data on missing persons must be handled strictly through a centralised, single-window system. When different agencies release separate forms and helpline numbers, coordination breaks down and vital information gets scattered.”

Subba, who previously worked on early warning studies for the volatile Tsho Rolpa glacial lake, questioned the sustainability of past investments.

“Why haven’t we installed 24-hour automated monitoring and warning systems along our most dangerous rivers?” he asked. “Despite massive funding from international donor agencies in the name of early warning systems, there is almost no lasting, practical impact on the ground.”

Unregulated settlement expansion and poorly engineered road construction along riverbanks have exacerbated the destruction. While mountain communities historically built homes on high, stable ridges, modern infrastructure has drawn settlements directly down to river margins.

“It is long past time we re-evaluated our entire approach to national development,” Subba said. “In this era of severe climate crisis, if we fail to deploy the right technology in the right places, we will never stop these recurring cycles of multi-billion-rupee destruction.”

(This story has been updated throughout the day. The latest version is the one running in the print edition on August 31, 2026.)