Landslides and road safety on Nepal's hill roads

This page explains why road cuts and landslides go together in Nepal, what the research and press found, and how district administrations responded in September 2026². Seasonal closures on specific routes are in monsoon road closures; the wider topic is in the rural roads hub.

Why roads and landslides go together

A 2018 study in Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences tied the rise in Nepal’s landslide deaths to a combination of earthquakes, climate change and an explosion of informal road construction that destabilises slopes during the rainy season¹. Oversteepened slopes, poor water drainage and poor debris management provide the conditions for failure during heavy monsoon rain¹.

The study compared landslides triggered by the 2015 Gorkha earthquake with those triggered by monsoon rainfall, measuring each one’s distance from roads¹. Rainfall-triggered landslides were more than twice as likely to occur within 100 m of a road as the landslides generated by the earthquake¹. The trend will likely rise as development continues, as China’s Belt and Road Initiative seeks to construct three major trunk roads through the Nepali Himalaya¹.

A cloudburst on 29 and 30 July 2015, in the first monsoon after the Gorkha earthquake, triggered landslides that killed 29 people in Nepal’s western region¹. Informal, non-engineered roads regularly fail during the annual monsoon season, and green roads are one ecologically and financially sustainable alternative¹.

How unplanned roads are built

Many mid-hill roads are built without an environmental assessment or planning³. Road building was taking an ever-growing share of physical infrastructure budgets at the federal, provincial and local levels³. The Ministry of Finance had earmarked NRs 109 billion for physical infrastructure projects in 2018/19³.

The Ministries of Physical Infrastructure Development across all provinces say they do not have comprehensive data on provincial or municipal road networks³. With no plan for expanding and upgrading road networks, only those connected to influential leaders win road projects, said the spokesperson for the Karnali Province ministry³. Local and provincial governments, short of data but with funds, ended up constructing roads haphazardly³. For how a planned road differs, see how rural roads are built.

What happens in heavy rain

Unplanned roads, mostly unpaved and earthen, end up swept away during the rains as extreme rainfall becomes more frequent³. In one year nearly 300 people perished in landslides across the country, the highest death toll in a decade³. In Bajhang, 10 people died in 10 days in multiple landslides between 27 April and 6 May³.

Darchula: what a 2026 preprint tracked

A preprint posted on 29 September 2026 and under review for Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences studied two adjacent watersheds in Darchula district, Far-Western Nepal, where bulldozer roads began in 2017⁴. Local roads in Nepal are built by bulldozer without slope protection, and the landslides that follow are usually blamed on monsoon rain⁴. The failures tracked the construction front rather than the older road⁴.

The failures were not rainfall-driven⁴. One third of the failures never reached the landslide inventory, and 60% of those that did had failed on dry days⁴. South-facing aspect and failure size were the dominant and most stable controls on whether a failure persisted⁴. A four-variable pre-construction map placed about 90% of persistent failures in terrain flagged unsuitable beforehand⁴.

August 2025: blockages on hill highways

In August 2025 a landslide blocked the Karnali Highway section between Surkhet and Jumla at Gagnekhola in Kalikot district from Monday evening at around 7:30pm⁵. Authorities used two excavators early on the Tuesday morning and reopened the road for one-way traffic by 9:30am⁵. Police warned that light rain could cause further landslides and stationed machinery nearby for quick response⁵.

In August 2025 a landslide on the Siddhartha Highway in Palpa, near Budhikot, occurred in an area recently widened and levelled by heavy machinery⁵. The closures left hundreds of vehicles stranded and disrupted travel between the hills and the Tarai plains⁵. In Gulmi, police said landslides in wards 1, 2 and 3 of Kali Gandaki Rural Municipality blocked the Kali Gandaki Corridor⁵. Authorities said landslides are common in these regions because of loose soil and unstable rocks that can fall in both rainy and dry seasons⁵.

September 2026: closures and night bans

In September 2026 heavy rain disrupted transport and raised the risk of floods and landslides across several parts of Nepal². Authorities restricted night-time travel, moved vulnerable families to safety and halted trekking in high-altitude areas².

Related routes

In September 2026 night-time vehicle bans and cautions were reported on hill roads². For an unpaved far-west link, see the Mugu-Humla link road; the main trunk route is on the Karnali Highway page.