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PRIME MINISTER'S DEPARTMENT
NATIONAL DISASTER MANAGEMENT AGENCY
PRIME MINISTER'S DEPARTMENT
NATIONAL DISASTER MANAGEMENT AGENCY
KATHMANDU: Pasukan mencari dan menyelamat (SAR) Nepal memberi tumpuan kepada tiga terowong projek hidroelektrik yang dipercayai menempatkan puluhan pekerja yang mungkin masih terperangkap.
Pihak berkuasa memaklumkannya hari ini, selepas banjir besar ragut ratusan nyawa dan menyebabkan ribuan orang masih hilang di negara Himalaya itu serta wilayah Tibet, China yang bersempadan dengannya.
Sekurang-kurangnya 11 projek hidroelektrik ditenggelami banjir selepas glasier runtuh ke dalam sungai di sempadan Nepal-China pada 26 Ogos lalu.
Ia menyebabkan pintu masuk ke terowong projek berkenaan tertimbus runtuhan dan lumpur serta memutuskan hubungan dengan mereka yang terperangkap di dalamnya.
"Operasi SAR kami memberi tumpuan kepada usaha menemukan mangsa yang terselamat, termasuk di dalam terowong.
"Tumpuan lebih besar diberikan kepada projek hidroelektrik Chilime kerana kami percaya ada orang terperangkap di situ, berikutan terdapat kantin, tempat penginapan dan kemudahan makanan," kata ketua pihak berkuasa bencana negara itu, Dharma Raj Upreti, kepada Reuters.
Pasukan penyelamat turut memberi tumpuan kepada terowong projek Upper Trishuli 3A dan 3B yang dihubungkan menerusi satu terowong bersambung, kata Upreti.
"Oksigen disalurkan ke terowong berkenaan melalui paip dan kami sudah menghantar peralatan baharu yang diperlukan untuk operasi membuka laluan masuk ke dalamnya," katanya.
Perdana Menteri Nepal, Balendra Shah, berikrar operasi menyelamat akan diteruskan tanpa henti.
"Kami sedar mengenai tanggungjawab dan sensitiviti perkara ini. Kami menterjemahkan semangat kemanusiaan rakyat Nepal kepada tindakan menerusi operasi SAR," katanya dalam hantaran di media sosial lewat Isnin.
Tentera yang terbabit dalam operasi menyelamat berkata pada Isnin, kira-kira 121 daripada keseluruhan 900 orang yang hilang dari projek hidroelektrik berkenaan mungkin terperangkap di dalam terowong.
Ada juga yang lain mungkin sedang bekerja di kawasan lain di loji jana kuasa tetapi tidak berada dalam rangkaian terowong yang luas itu.
Sejak beberapa hari kebelakangan ini, pasukan SAR berjaya menyelamatkan empat orang, termasuk seorang warga China yang dikeluarkan dari sebuah terowong pada Sabtu.
Dua lagi ialah pekerja hidroelektrik yang diselamatkan dari terowong lain pada Jumaat, manakala seorang wanita Nepal berjaya dikeluarkan dari rumahnya yang tertimbus pada Sabtu.
Sekurang-kurangnya 1,399 orang terbunuh akibat tanah runtuh, manakala lebih 5,400 masih hilang di Nepal dan Tibet. Angka korban itu termasuk 43 orang yang maut di pihak China dan 519 yang masih hilang setakat Sabtu.
Tiada satu pun mayat yang ditemui di Tibet dikenal pasti sebagai warga asing, lapor agensi berita negara China, Xinhua, hari ini.
China dan Nepal sebelum ini menyatakan perubahan iklim menjadi punca runtuhan glasier yang mencetuskan banjir berkenaan. - REUTERS
PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia will not shield any Malaysian company found to be involved in fires in Indonesia, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said today, while calling for the recurring transboundary haze issue to be raised at the Asean level.
Anwar said the minister concerned would raise the matter for discussion among Asean members, while cautioning that allegations linking Malaysian companies to the fires had yet to be established.
“That is the allegation, but actually, many of the fires we detected came from forest areas. Even if there are Malaysian companies involved, we will give Indonesia the space to take action.
“If it happens there, they will take action there and we will not defend them,” he told reporters after meeting Plantation and Commodities Ministry staff here.
Indonesia said on Aug 31 that it was inspecting 19 companies after fires covering a combined 11,047ha were detected within their concession areas across seven provinces in Sumatra and Kalimantan.
The companies were not identified at the time.
Indonesia’s Forestry Ministry subsequently imposed administrative sanctions on five companies in West Kalimantan after fires were detected within their concession areas, including suspending business licences and ordering environmental rehabilitation.
Malaysian civil society groups have since called on Indonesian authorities to disclose whether Malaysian-linked companies were among those being investigated.
Asked whether Asean’s existing mechanisms were sufficient to address recurring transboundary haze, Anwar said there was room for improvement.
“There is room for improvement. I think the minister concerned must look at this seriously because this affects lives, especially children and babies.
“If we look at Serian, it has been extremely disruptive,” he said.
The haze prompted an emergency declaration in Serian, Sarawak, on Sept 4 after the Air Pollutant Index exceeded 500.
The emergency was lifted yesterday following an improvement in air quality, although authorities said haze conditions had yet to fully subside.
KAZAN, Sept 8: More than 50 emergency responders from Russia and Malaysia spent 18 hours dealing with the aftermath of a simulated earthquake during a joint exercise held on the sidelines of the Integrated Safety and Security Exhibition in Kazan.
According to the exercise scenario, the earthquake struck the Republic of Idelistan near its capital, the city of Salkyn. The disaster resulted in casualties and significant damage to infrastructure. Under these circumstances, the republic’s National Emergency Situations Agency requested international assistance.
Russian and Malaysian emergency responders were among the first to respond to the government’s appeal for help. Working side by side, specialists from the two countries searched for and rescued simulated victims, set up field hospitals and temporary camps, and provided the affected population with food, drinking water and essential medicines.
The practical part of the exercise took place at a modern training complex for firefighters and emergency responders, which was built specifically for the exhibition. The teams operated across six different areas, including high-altitude locations, collapsed structures and labyrinths, using specialized rescue equipment.
The exercise was conducted in accordance with the standards and procedures used for international classification under the methodology of the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG).
The tasks were successfully completed by Russian emergency responders from the Khabarovsk Krai, Siberian and Volga Regional Search and Rescue units, the Kazan Search and Rescue Team, as well as the Centrospas rescue unit. They worked alongside their Malaysian counterparts throughout the exercise.
Joint exercises of this kind strengthen cooperation between emergency responders from different countries while providing an opportunity to exchange professional experience, knowledge and practical skills.
“Only through joint efforts can we effectively address challenges on such a large scale and build a common safe future for our current and future generations. Unity of purpose and mutual assistance are a reliable shield that helps protect what is most precious — human lives,” said Russian Emergency Situations Minister Alexander Kurenkov. – RT
The exact timeline of the recent Nepal flooding disaster is becoming clearer. At 8:37 am, instruments recorded what was initially interpreted as an earthquake near Nepal’s border with China. Seven minutes later, CCTV recorded the Gyirong Port border post being destroyed by a massive debris flow and flood.
Nepal’s flood authorities learned about the incident at about 9:00 am and sent out an emergency SMS alert at about 9:15 am. But by that time, Nepal was already deep into a major disaster.
The 38-minute gap between the tremor being detected and the emergency alert is striking. But it would be wrong to assume Nepal’s authorities could simply have acted on the initial signal: at the time, it appeared to be a small earthquake, rather than a much rarer mountain collapse. The flood also arrived too swiftly for water-level sensors: they went almost immediately from recording normal levels to being destroyed.
The more interesting question is what a better-integrated warning system might have made possible. Could seismic readings, satellite images and other observations have been combined quickly enough to recognise what was happening and alert people further downstream?
Existing early-warning systems have often been designed around particular hazards such as regular rain-caused floods or glacial lake outburst floods (Glofs). But this disaster was neither a Glof nor a regular flood. Instead, it appears to have involved a rare, large-scale collapse of rock and ice, which turned into a devastating debris flow and flood.
As a recent study of a strikingly similar flood in India last year argued, this type of hazard is largely absent from existing warning frameworks. As warming destabilises glaciers and thaws permafrost, such events are likely to happen more often.
Cascading mountain hazards that cross borders
In July 2025, a glacial lake in Tibet burst and swept down this very same stretch of river into Nepal, killing at least nine people and leaving around 20 missing in Nepal. Eleven people were also officially reported missing on the Chinese side.
After the flood, Nepal and China agreed in principle to share real-time information about floods, landslides and glacial lakes. However, despite Nepal’s foreign minister raising the issue during a visit to China in May 2026, no formal agreement has been signed.
Across the Himalayas and Hindu Kush mountain ranges, rivers, weather systems and infrastructure frequently span national boundaries. Our ongoing research shows a hazard that begins in one place can have lethal consequences – and create new warning requirements – far downstream.
A warming climate is increasing these risks by thinning glaciers, thawing permafrost and destabilising slopes, even if climate change isn’t the sole explanation for every disaster. Meanwhile, roads and hydropower projects are putting more people and infrastructure in threatened valleys.
Cooperation has to come before the disaster
Some cross-border early-warning arrangements already exist between Nepal and its neighbours, particularly for recurring floods. But sudden, cascading events such as the recent disaster pose a different challenge. A warning has value only if it travels the whole distance – from a sensor in the mountains, through scientific agencies, national and local authorities, to households in the valleys and plains below, in the minutes that matter.
Community-based flood warning already works in parts of Nepal’s Koshi basin, where upstream gauges and trained local volunteers buy downstream villages precious time.
A regional early warning system would have to link these community-level systems with national and cross-border monitoring, so that information can move from the source of a hazard to the people at risk. That means agreeing in advance what should be shared, how warnings should be passed between countries and agencies, and what action they should trigger.
That requires institutional changes and political commitment, as much as new technology. The region’s existing water treaties were written to divide flows and manage dams and barrages, not to govern cascading hazards in the high mountains.
Governments could establish permanent bodies responsible for Himalayan rivers and their associated hazards. Featuring both scientists and policymakers, and linked to counterparts in neighbouring countries, these public bodies would be mandated to share data, jointly monitor glaciers, lakes and slopes, and coordinate warnings across borders.
The aim would be to make cooperation routine and sustained between disasters, rather than improvised in a crisis when events may unfold too quickly for international debate. None of this requires neighbours to resolve their wider disputes; it asks only that disaster warning be ring-fenced as shared humanitarian infrastructure that keeps working unabated.
The technologies for predicting and monitoring high-mountain hazards are improving fast. We now need more international scientific and policy cooperation, and warning systems capable of turning these observations into rapid action.
This article was originally published on The Conversation.
KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 8 — Malaysia could experience extreme heat and dry weather from January to May next year, with temperatures in some areas potentially reaching 40°C as a very strong El Nino, or Super El Nino, is expected to develop towards the end of this year.
Malaysian Meteorological Department (MetMalaysia) director-general Dr Mohd Hisham Mohd Anip said the likelihood of the phenomenon occurring was now approaching 100 per cent, based on climate model forecasts from international observation and research centres, according to a report published by Berita Harian.
He said past meteorological records showed that very strong El Nino episodes were often associated with higher temperatures, dry weather and a serious risk of haze, similar to conditions currently affecting the country.