Kathmandu, April 27 -- In the first two episodes of this series, we looked at how climate breakdown has worsened the water shortage in eastern Nepal, with rains failing and springs going dry.

But there is a flipside. In the monsoon, there is also the curse of too much rain leading to destructive landslides, floods driving people out.

Analysing meteorological and hydrological data from the past half-a-century in eastern Nepal's Tamor River basin, the big floods of 1963 and 1968 stand out with other less destructive monsoons in between.

Nepal's monsoons usually last 112 days from mid-June to mid-September, and its clockwork arrival and departure has inspired Nepali poetry and song.

But climate breakdown has disrupted the timetable, a...