India, Sept. 8 -- The catastrophe that struck Nepal on August 26 is more than another Himalayan flood or national disaster-it is a warning that across the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH), hazards are now moving faster than the institutions built to govern them.

The scale is difficult to comprehend. A sudden surge of water, ice, rock and sediment swept through the Bhote Koshi and Trishuli river corridors after an event upstream of the Nepal-China border. Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Dhading, Chitwan and other districts were devastated. Hydropower facilities were inundated, roads and bridges disappeared, settlements were buried, and border connectivity was severed. Nepalese authorities had reported more than 1,250 deaths, with thousands still missing; the g...