The Dudh Koshi river flowing through its deep forested Himalayan valley near Jairamghat in eastern Nepal, where the Hunga Khola joins it at the Solukhumbu-Okhaldhunga boundary
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Hunga Khola Landslide Dam Solukhumbu: Trekker Safety Update

Byanish maharjan

Solukhumbu, Nepal (as of Friday 11 September 2026, evening): A landslide dammed the Hunga Khola river in eastern Solukhumbu early on Friday morning, pooling water behind a natural blockade and triggering flood warnings across three downstream districts. By Friday evening the situation had eased: water was flowing through the dam, officials reported no immediate risk, and no evacuations had been ordered. The Everest Base Camp corridor around Lukla and Namche Bazaar is not affected.

Direct answer for travellers: The landslide struck between wards 2 and 4 of Mahakulung Rural Municipality at around 7 am on Friday, creating a blockage roughly 100 metres long on the Hunga Khola, in the Gudel area. Water pooled behind it for about three hours before beginning to spill over the top. Solukhumbu, Okhaldhunga and Udayapur district administrations issued alerts, and police and the Armed Police Force used public-address systems to warn vulnerable riverbank settlements. By the evening update, the water was flowing through the blockade normally, the Dudh Koshi, Sun Koshi and Saptakoshi had risen only slightly, and the Udayapur chief district officer said there was no need to evacuate settlements. The alert zone covers riverbank areas of eastern Solukhumbu, Okhaldhunga and Udayapur, not the main Everest trekking routes.

Key takeaways

  • A landslide blocked the Hunga Khola in Gudel, Mahakulung Rural Municipality, Solukhumbu, at about 7 am on Friday 11 September 2026.
  • The blockage was roughly 100 metres long, with a dam 35 to 40 metres wide, pooling water across a stretch of about 40 metres.
  • Water began spilling over the dam about three hours later, and by Friday evening officials described the flood risk as declining.
  • Flood warnings covered the Hunga Khola and lower Dudh Koshi banks in Solukhumbu, the Jairamghat area of Okhaldhunga, and seven local government areas of Udayapur.
  • The Khumbu valley and the Everest Base Camp trail sit far upstream on the Dudh Koshi and are outside every warning area named by officials.
  • No evacuations were ordered as of Friday evening, but authorities continue to ask riverbank residents and travellers to stay clear of the water.
The Dudh Koshi river flowing through its deep forested Himalayan valley near Jairamghat, where the Hunga Khola joins it at the Solukhumbu-Okhaldhunga boundary in eastern Nepal
The Dudh Koshi near Jairamghat, the confluence where the Hunga Khola joins it at the Solukhumbu-Okhaldhunga boundary. Photo: Pratap Baniya, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

What this article covers

What happened on the Hunga Khola on Friday

The Hunga Khola, a tributary that drains the Mahakulung corner of eastern Solukhumbu, was completely blocked for several hours on Friday morning after a hillslope collapsed into the river between wards 2 and 4 of Mahakulung Rural Municipality. The landslide debris formed a natural dam roughly 100 metres long, and the river began filling the valley behind it.

Bhojraj Karki, ward 7 chairperson of neighbouring Dudhkoshi Rural Municipality, described the blockage to the Kathmandu Post as a dam about 35 to 40 metres wide, with water pooling across a stretch of about 40 metres. “The river is quite large. It was completely blocked for a while. The water has now filled up and started flowing over it. However, the risk remains,” Karki said.

Time, Friday 11 September What happened
About 7 am A landslide blocks the Hunga Khola between wards 2 and 4 of Mahakulung Rural Municipality, in the Gudel area, creating a debris run roughly 100 metres long.
Morning Water pools behind the blockage, forming a small reservoir across a stretch of about 40 metres behind a dam 35 to 40 metres wide.
About 10 am Water begins spilling over the top of the dam, roughly three hours after the blockage formed, and starts flowing downstream again.
Mid-morning Solukhumbu, Okhaldhunga and Udayapur administrations alert riverside residents. Nepal Police and the Armed Police Force use public-address systems to warn vulnerable areas.
By evening Officials report the water flowing through the blockade normally. The Udayapur chief district officer says there is no immediate risk and no need to evacuate settlements.

Because a sudden breach of a freshly formed landslide dam can release the pooled water in minutes, the initial alerts were issued as a precaution across every settlement downstream of the blockage.

Where the Hunga Khola is, in plain geography

The Hunga Khola rises in the Mahakulung region of eastern Solukhumbu, the part of Nepal’s Everest district that lies east of the main Solu valleys and south of the high Himalaya. It flows through the Gudel and Sotang areas and joins the Dudh Koshi near Jairamghat, on the boundary between Solukhumbu and Okhaldhunga districts. From the confluence, the combined water continues down the Dudh Koshi toward the Sun Koshi and Saptakoshi, passing through Udayapur on its way to the plains.

The district itself needs little introduction to trekkers. Solukhumbu combines the lower Solu hills with the high Khumbu, covers about 3,312 square kilometres, and held a population of roughly 105,000 at the 2021 census, with its administrative headquarters at Salleri, according to Wikipedia’s district profile. Mount Everest stands in its northern corner inside Sagarmatha National Park. The Dudh Koshi, which the Hunga Khola feeds, is described by Wikipedia as the highest river on Earth by elevation: it rises from glacier lakes at about 5,100 metres and meets the Sapta Koshi at roughly 1,245 metres.

That elevation span is exactly why the flood warnings were taken seriously. A river that falls almost four vertical kilometres in a single basin can move a great deal of water a long way, very quickly.

Does this affect Everest Base Camp treks?

No, not on the routes most travellers use. The warnings named the Hunga Khola itself, the banks of the lower Dudh Koshi in Solukhumbu, the Jairamghat area of Okhaldhunga, and riverbank parts of Udayapur. The classic Everest Base Camp corridor is a different corner of the same district: flights land at Lukla already high on the river’s upper reaches, and the trail follows the upper Dudh Koshi northward through Phakding, Monjo and Namche Bazaar toward Everest. That valley sits far upstream of the Hunga Khola confluence and outside every warning area officials named on Friday.

If your plans involve the quieter eastern side of the district, the practical advice is different. Lower Solukhumbu is also home to the Salleri and Phaplu gateways and the growing trail-running scene around Mapya Dudhkoshi Rural Municipality, which TravellingNepal covered earlier this week when the region’s Everest View Trail Race gained international recognition. Walkers, runners and support crews moving through the Mahakulung, Sotang or lower Dudh Koshi valleys in the coming days should treat river crossings and riverbank stops with extra caution and follow whatever the local administration announces.

For the full picture of the Everest region’s trails, seasons and logistics, see our related guide: Everest Base Camp Trek: The Complete Guide.

How landslide dams form, and why officials fear them

A landslide dam is exactly what the name suggests: a slope failure heavy enough to dump rock, soil and debris across a river channel faster than the water can move it out. The river pools behind the debris, sometimes for hours, sometimes for years. The danger comes from the two ways the story can end: the water either finds a stable path over or through the barrier and the pond drains gently, or the barrier fails suddenly and the whole pool leaves at once.

  1. Slope failure: Heavy monsoon rain, saturated ground or riverbank undercutting weakens a hillslope until it collapses into the valley below.
  2. Channel blockage: If enough debris reaches the river, it can seal the channel completely. On Friday the Hunga Khola was blocked along a stretch of roughly 100 metres.
  3. Pooling: The river backs up into a small reservoir. On Friday, water pooled across about 40 metres of channel behind a dam 35 to 40 metres wide.
  4. Overtopping or breach: Water either begins spilling over the top and gradually cuts a stable outlet, or the dam collapses and releases the pool as a flash flood with little warning.

On Friday the Hunga Khola followed the gentler path: the water began spilling over the top about three hours after the blockage formed, and by evening it was flowing through normally. But as long as the debris mass remains in the channel, a sudden collapse can still change the picture, which is why officials kept the riverbank warnings standing.

The sequence is familiar in Nepal this monsoon. The catastrophic flood that struck the Bhotekoshi valley in Rasuwa on 26 August, which TravellingNepal has covered in depth, was followed within days by reports of a new barrier lake on the river system that prompted flood warnings as far downstream as China, according to the Kathmandu Post. In the same week, a flash flood on the Namrung Khola in Gorkha struck the Manaslu Circuit corridor. Landslide-dammed and suddenly released rivers have been one of the defining mountain hazards of the 2026 monsoon.

How three district administrations responded

Because the Hunga Khola crosses a district line before it meets the Dudh Koshi, the response chain involved three separate district administration offices, each warning the settlements in its own jurisdiction:

  1. Solukhumbu: Police and the local administration issued warnings along the Hunga Khola and the lower Dudh Koshi, with the rural municipalities of Sotang and Thulung Dudhkoshi identified as the first areas at risk if a breach had occurred.
  2. Okhaldhunga: Chief District Officer Tubaraj Pokhrel monitored the dam as water gradually began spilling from the upper section of the pooled lake, and the Jairamghat area near the confluence was flagged as the district’s first exposure point.
  3. Udayapur: The District Administration Office issued an alert for settlements downstream of the confluence. Chief District Officer Mekha Bahadur Mongrati said warnings took account of flooding reaching the Ghurmi area of Katari Municipality first, followed by areas of Tapli, Limchungbung and Rautamai rural municipalities, and then Belaka and Chaudandigadhi municipalities.

In a breach scenario, the Kathmandu Post reported, floodwaters could have moved through Sotang and Thulung Dudhkoshi rural municipalities in Solukhumbu before reaching the Dudh Koshi at Jairamghat in Okhaldhunga, and then affected seven local government areas in Udayapur after entering the Koshi River.

On the ground, Nepal Police and the Armed Police Force used public-address systems to tell residents in vulnerable areas to remain alert and move to safer locations if flooding occurred. Public-address warnings matter in rural valleys like these, where a vehicle with a loudspeaker is often the fastest way to reach people before the water does.

Status as of Friday evening

Two reports from the Kathmandu Post trace the day. In the morning, the dam stood intact with water spilling over it and the risk of a sudden collapse still live, and officials urged residents to stay away from the banks of the Hunga Khola and Dudh Koshi rivers. By the evening update from Udayapur, Chief District Officer Mekha Bahadur Mongrati described the situation as improved: “The water from the dam is now flowing normally, so the water levels in the Dudhkoshi, Sunkoshi and Saptakoshi rivers have only risen. There is no immediate risk, and there is no need to evacuate settlements at this point.”

Okhaldhunga’s Chief District Officer Tubaraj Pokhrel had earlier assessed the risk as appearing to decline as water gradually spilled from the upper section of the lake formed behind the landslide.

The labels travellers should apply are these. The dam is CONFIRMED as having formed and partially drained. The flood risk is EASING as of Friday evening, according to named district officials speaking to the Kathmandu Post. What is NOT CONFIRMED is that the debris mass is stable for the long term. Officials themselves kept the riverbank warnings standing precisely because a fresh landslide dam can keep shifting for days after the water starts flowing.

Practical guidance for travellers in the region

If you are in eastern Nepal this week, the simplest rules are the ones officials repeated all day:

  1. Stay off riverbanks and gravel bars along the Hunga Khola and lower Dudh Koshi in Solukhumbu, and along the river in Okhaldhunga and Udayapur, until district administrations stand down their alerts.
  2. Camp above the waterline. In a landslide-dam scenario the river can rise with almost no warning, so choose ground well above the channel, not the scenic flat beside it.
  3. Follow local announcements. Police and district offices are the source of truth here, not social media. If a vehicle with a loudspeaker passes through your area, take its instructions seriously.
  4. Do not stop on bridges or at confluences to watch the water. Riverbank viewpoints are the first places a surge reaches.
  5. Check the state of your route before crossing eastern Solukhumbu on foot. Trails that cross the Hunga Khola, its side streams or the lower Dudh Koshi may have been damaged by the landslide or by the pooled water, even where the path itself was not the direct hazard.
  6. If you are trekking with a guide or porter, keep the team together and let the guide make the call about reroutes. Registered guides carry the local contacts that matter in situations like this.

For a wider framework on river, weather and slope hazards in Nepal’s mountains, see our related guide: Nepal Trekking Safety and Health: The Complete Guide.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Hunga Khola landslide dam still dangerous?

As of Friday evening, the water was flowing through the blockage normally and named officials described the risk as declining, with no evacuations ordered. However, the debris dam remains in the riverbed, and district administrations were still asking riverside residents and travellers to stay clear of the banks in case the barrier shifts or collapses. Treat the hazard as reduced but not gone.

Does the Solukhumbu landslide affect Everest Base Camp treks?

No. The affected stretch of the Hunga Khola drains the eastern, lower part of Solukhumbu and joins the Dudh Koshi far downstream of the Khumbu valley. The classic Everest Base Camp trail between Lukla and Namche Bazaar runs along the upper Dudh Koshi, above the confluence zone and outside every warning area named on Friday.

Where exactly is the Hunga Khola?

It is a tributary in the Mahakulung region of eastern Solukhumbu, in Koshi Province. It flows through the Gudel and Sotang areas and joins the Dudh Koshi near Jairamghat on the Solukhumbu-Okhaldhunga boundary. From the confluence, floodwater would continue down the Dudh Koshi into the Koshi system through Udayapur.

What happens if a landslide dam collapses?

The pooled water is released at once as a flash flood, which can move down a steep Himalayan valley faster than people can move out of its way. That is why authorities issued warnings across three districts even while the water was still safely spilling over the top.

Should this make me postpone a Nepal trip?

Officials issued no trekking closures on Friday, and the alert zone covers riverbank settlements in three rural districts rather than the main tourism gateways. The standard monsoon advice applies: keep an eye on district administration notices, and build a day or two of flexibility into any itinerary that crosses river valleys in the hills.

Sources

Every factual claim in this report is traceable to the sources below. Direct quotes are reproduced verbatim.

Published on 11 September 2026. This report will be updated if district administrations revise their warnings over the weekend.

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