This Nepal village has survived for 1,000 years. Now recurring floods threaten its future

On the night of 15 May this year, the usual quiet of the Himalayan village of Til in the far north-west of Nepal was broken by a strange rumbling. Pemba Thundup came out of his house, barefoot, to see a deluge of earth, water and rocks coming down the mountainside towards the flat-roofed mud houses. The whole village was soon awake and, carrying the elderly people on their backs, members of 21 families scrambled to safety in a nearby field. After two weeks of sheltering in tents, with no sign of any government help to rebuild or resettle, they reluctantly moved back into their broken homes, but unanimously agreed to leave the centuries-old settlement for a safer location by the end of the year. The idea of abandoning the village would have been unimaginable a few years ago. For centuries this small, resourceful community has weathered epidemics, natural disasters and geopolitical upheavals while preserving a rich cultural heritage. But the uncertainty brought by the changing climate may be the death of it. Roughly 100km (60 miles) south of Tibet’s sacred Mount Kailash and at a height of about 4,000 metres (13,000ft), the Limi valley is home to three villages – Til, Halji and Dzang – which have been inhabited for at least 1,000 years. At its peak in the 2000s, about 1,000 people in nearly 180 households lived here. For us to be taken seriously, the flood has to be huge or the entire village has to be carried away Tashi Lhazom The Limi valley falls within Nepal’s borders, but is culturally and geographically aligned with Tibet. People speak Tibetan and are the custodians of some of the oldest surviving Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, dating back to the 10th century. Astrid Hovden, an associate professor at the Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø, who is the author of the book Limi, the Land In-Between, says: “They have a tradition of being quite self-reliant, and that has to do with their particular history of being a community located at the border between Tibet and Nepal, where they didn’t have any expectations of help. “So they have been semi-autonomous and governing themselves. And this very efficient way of organising themselves has served quite well in these cases.” The morning after the May flood in Til, Nepal’s government was gearing up for its inaugural climate conference, Sagarmatha Sambaad [Everest Dialogue], in Kathmandu. Tashi Lhazom, a 25-year-old climate activist from Halji, was there to argue how mountain communities such as hers were often overlooked when it came to climate hazards. As Lhazom’s phone filled with photos and videos from the flood the previous night, no one at the conference had heard of the incident. “For us to be taken seriously, the flood has to be huge or the entire village has to be carried away. But even though nobody died, everybody was in danger. So I made sure that they didn’t forget the issue,” says Lhazom. Nothing is permanent, I think that’s how we need to console ourselves Tenzin Norbu Lama Lhazom and other members of the Limi Youth Society started a GoFundMe page to help with relief efforts, and the Kathmandu team contacted ministries requesting immediate relief and help to protect Til and Limi from future disasters, while organising a media blitz. Local government and aid organisations donated tents, solar lights and food packets, and restored drinking water facilities. Kunchok Mingmar, 40, who grew up in Til, says: “We also sent four of our guys from the village to investigate what actually happened up where the flood came from, days before the government people or the police even arrived.” A frozen lake at a height of 5,349 metres was thought to be the source of the flood. Lhazom’s attempts to spread news of the Til disaster at the climate conference caught the attention of a geoscientist who suggested it could be the result of pools of meltwater forming in the depressions left by thawing permafrost. When these suddenly drain away, it creates catastrophic flooding. Without help, Til’s residents have been unable to start rebuilding. “We have nothing left; there is no electricity, no irrigation canals for farming – all the bare essentials that made life possible in this remote place have been destroyed by the flood,” says Thundup, 37. Til is the most remote of the three settlements, nestled in an offshoot of the main valley. At this junction, a four-metre-wide bridge was destroyed a few years ago during another flash flood. A smaller bridge was built upstream, reconnecting Til to the outside world. In July, the new bridge was also swept away in a second flash flood of the year. In November construction on a third bridge was completed, paid for by the GoFundMe donations. “[When the bridges were knocked down], we were surrounded by water on all sides. It may not be this year, but it could be the next or the year after, when our village might get swept away in a flood or landslide,” warns Thundup. The extreme weather events of the climate crisis are not the only threat to the future of the Limi population. It was already in decline as young people sought jobs in the city and the monasteries’ influence waned. When Zang Philgye Ling monastery in Dzang closed in 2024 as a result of the dwindling numbers of monks, the village started to empty out. “The people of Limi see their landscape as inhabited by numerous spirits and deities that influence their lives and livelihoods, and the monastery has a key role in appeasing these numina,” says Hovden. But repeated floods are speeding up the departure of the remaining people in the Limi valley. “Nothing is permanent; I think that’s how we need to console ourselves. Even people in Kathmandu are going abroad – how can we retain people in a place as remote as Limi?” says Tenzin Norbu Lama, 31, from Dzang. Related: ‘If I had to choose, I’d prefer the earthquake’: the 2015 disaster left Nepal in ruins, now record rains wreak fresh havoc Mingmar, one of the founders of the Limi Youth Society, says: “Sadly, most of the people who have been staying in Til want to leave now. But having moved my own family to Kathmandu, I can’t force the others to stay there in the village for the sake of preserving culture. “That is why we try to help in whatever way we can from here, whether it is seeking relief assistance from the government or the international community or donors. We want to provide better facilities for those who wish to stay.” If the people of Til leave the valley, Halji would be the last, fragile remaining marker of Limi’s 1,000-year heritage. The monastery and village council have ensured that only two out of the 87 families who live there have left Halji permanently, leaving a 400-strong population. The Limi community has approached the Nepalese government, asking for the reconstruction of critical infrastructure, allocation of land and funds for the resettlement of Til to Kathmandu, a comprehensive assessment of the valley, and the drainage of problematic glacial lakes. But they have had no response, they say. So, villagers are waiting for family members and leaders working across the border in Purang to return in November, when the Limi community has its annual meeting, before deciding what to do next. “We are not happy to leave the village and our monastery behind. We cannot carry the monastery with us, but we will take our statues, relics and other artefacts with us and continue our tradition in a new place,” says Thundup. “If we are alive, we can keep our culture alive.” • Additional reporting by Kunchok Phurbu in Til