DOGE cuts to USAID halted program that built flood early-warning system in Nepal?

In August 2026, a claim (archived) circulated online that the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency cut funding in early 2025 for a U.S. Agency for International Development and NASA program that provided early warning for floods in Nepal.

Claims about DOGE’s alleged cuts circulated as Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction & Management Authority said on Aug. 31 that at least 939 people had died and 3,925 were missing after flash floods hit the Nepal-China border five days earlier.

One Facebook user who posted about the alleged DOGE program cuts after the deadly floods in Nepal wrote:

DOGE hunted federal grants for the word “climate” and defunded whatever came up. One of the things that came up was a USAID and NASA satellite program that mapped dangerous glacial lakes, predicted floods, and ran early warning systems across the globe. Including Nepal. Last week, a glacier collapsed above the Nepal-China border, and the flood killed over 270 people. More than 2000 are still missing. Elon Musk said he spent that weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.

Similar claims also circulated on Instagram (archived), Threads (archived) and Bluesky (archived). Snopes readers contacted us about the claim.

The claim circulated after Jeremy Konyndyk, a USAID official under former presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, posted (archived) on X about the SERVIR program, a joint USAID/NASA initiative that formerly operated in Nepal. The program’s work, Konyndyk wrote, included “flood prediction, early warning, disaster readiness, glacier inventories, and mapping dangerous glacial lakes.”

Konyndyk claimed DOGE cut the SERVIR program in Nepal amid its dismantling of USAID. The program itself said on its website that the initiative “concluded in January 2025” but did not say why. This was around the time President Donald Trump and his then-adviser Elon Musk said they would shut down USAID.

According to a list of USAID funding cuts reported by Politico that DOGE allegedly sent to Congress in March 2025, the cost-cutting department removed funding from several different SERVIR programs, including the program in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region (Page 135), which includes Nepal.

We contacted the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, which delivered the SERVIR program in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region, to confirm whether DOGE cuts ended the program there and await a reply to our query. 

Contracts or grants related to the SERVIR program in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region did not appear on DOGE’s website listing estimated savings, though the department said it had not uploaded documentation for all the government contracts, awards or leases it cut.

While awaiting a reply and because Snopes could not independently verify the authenticity of Politico’s document that appeared to show DOGE cut the SERVIR program in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region, we leave this claim unrated.

A State Department spokesperson said via email on Sept. 1, 2026, that, despite the end of the SERVIR program in Nepal, the department supports the country’s flood warning capacity through two existing programs: a project that helps Nepal’s National Meteorological and Hydrological Service build and operate flash flood warning systems as part of a broader effort spanning 70 countries; and an initiative that partners the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with Nepal’s Department of Hydrology and Meteorology to “strengthen early warning for rapid and effective disaster response.”

It’s unclear how, or to what extent, those purported partnerships impacted Nepal’s preparation for, or response to, the August 2026 flooding. Also unclear is how much money the U.S. agency has dedicated toward them. We followed up requesting more details and are waiting to hear back.

According to the spokesperson, the SERVIR program in Nepal was “not an end-to-end flood early warning system; it provided satellite data and decision-support tools feeding into national forecasting capacity.”

Effects of defunding programs like SERVIR can’t be known 

According to the SERVIR Hindu Kush Himalaya website, the program was developing a flood early-warning system that used data from the Copernicus satellite system to provide 10-15 day flood forecasts for vulnerable areas. It also produced maps of “potentially dangerous” glacier lakes in Nepal at risk of collapse. 

Because it was not funded at the time of the deadly August 2026 floods, it was impossible to know whether any of the program’s monitoring or warning systems would have made a difference to flood casualty numbers.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported that the floods in Nepal were likely caused by a magnitude 5.2 “slope failure involving a glacier” that sent debris flow and floodwaters rushing approximately 60 miles away. 

It was unclear whether SERVIR’s or any other early warning system could have alerted authorities to a possible landslide or glacier collapse and whether that would have allowed time for evacuations.

NPR reported on Aug. 30 that Chinese scientists found that the flooding happened after a large chunk of ice broke off a glacier and sent water, ice and mud rushing downhill. According to NPR’s report, it took seven minutes from when the glacier broke off until it hit Gyirong Port on the border between Tibet and Nepal, pulverizing the structure. 

Su Pengcheng, a researcher at the Chengdu Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, reportedly told NPR there was “no time for warning or to flee.”

The U.S. State Department said on Aug. 26 it would deploy a disaster response adviser to Nepal and provide $500,000 in assistance through its “global award with Catholic Relief Services.”

State Department spokesperson Tommy Piggot told ABC’s “This Week” on Aug. 30 that at least 85 Americans remained unaccounted for after the flooding.

For further reading, Snopes previously verified footage of the deadly floods hitting Gyirong Port.

Sources