When Infrastructure Fails, People Shouldn’t Have To

I’m devastated and heartbroken by what happened to my home country, Nepal, today.

As an engineer, I keep thinking about the uncomfortable reality of disasters like this. We cannot design every piece of infrastructure for every freakish, once-in-a-lifetime event. And yet, these “freakish” events have been far too common in recent years.

There will always be storms, floods, landslides, and forces far beyond what we can reasonably design for.

We couldn’t have saved every bridge, road, hydropower project, or house. Some infrastructure may have been destined to fail under an event of this magnitude.

But could we have saved more lives?

That is the question that keeps bothering me.

Yes, it felt like a tsunami in a landlocked country. But we have experienced similar situations every monsoon—not as destructive or powerful as this, but similar enough that we know these risks exist.

Engineering is not only about making structures strong enough to stand. It is also about understanding risk, identifying vulnerable communities, providing adequate warnings, planning evacuation, maintaining drainage and waterways, enforcing appropriate land-use practices, and making sure that when Mother Nature overwhelms our infrastructure, people at least have a chance to get out alive.

Maybe a flood-warning siren could have reduced some casualties. Maybe a little more setback distance between residential areas and rivers could have saved lives. Maybe better early-warning systems, evacuation planning, or communication could have given people those few extra minutes they desperately needed.

We should never judge an engineer simply by whether a structure survived an event it was never reasonably designed to withstand.

But we should constantly ask ourselves whether our systems, planning, warnings, and preparedness were good enough to protect the people who depended on them.

Today, I’m not thinking about calculations or design loads.

I’m thinking about the lives lost, the families grieving, and the people who should still be here.

My heart goes out to everyone affected by this tragedy. 🇳🇵

Infrastructure can be rebuilt. Lives cannot.