'So humbling': Former Napier council chief helping Nepal survivors get clean water

Former Napier City Council chief executive Steph Rotarangi is in Nepal helping to restore water to communities destroyed when an avalanche of ice and rock triggered a deadly flash flood.

Rotarangi, the council’s first female chief executive, has been in Nepal since leaving New Zealand on September 8.

She is part of a specialist Taskforce Kiwi team of three based in one of the “worst-hit areas that we have information on”, in the Nuwakot district.

She said it had been raining and was humid as they faced monsoon season in the area.

“There are two towns, Bidur and Trishuli ... and they have been absolutely torn apart, so from where we are it’s sort of where the road ends and that road used to go another 65km up a valley that was home to 13,000 people plus up to the border.

“When you stop to think about it, and lift your head up out of what you are doing, it’s an enormous scale.

Steph Rotarangi said the sheer scale of the disaster was hard to comprehend. Photo / Taskforce Kiwi

“There are entire communities that have been killed or are missing.”

The team are working alongside Taskforce Kiwi’s local NGO (non-governmental organisation) partner, Noble Compassionate Volunteers (NCV), to support the relief operation.

They are primarily supporting those displaced by flooding, helping to establish, improve and maintain displaced persons camps.

More than 5000 people remain missing, with the death toll topping 1350 last week.

Rescuers search for survivors following flash floods in Trishuli, Nepal. Photo / Getty Images

Conditions are austere, with major concerns about sanitation and drinking water for those displaced, including a large number of unaccompanied children.

“We are working to co-ordinate services like water, sanitation and hygiene,” Rotarangi said.

“There are relief centres here for survivors who have no running water, so we are water quality, water quantity.”

The team is working to improve conditions as the risk of water-borne diseases such as cholera increases.

“It’s very hard to articulate without using a lot of cliches, but it is absolutely unprecedented; the scale is really hard to comprehend.

Destruction in the centre of Trishuli, in Nepal's Nuwakot district. Photo / AFP

“The locals that have survived described it like they thought the mountains were coming to engulf them.”

She said they “didn’t imagine anything like this could ever happen”.

Amid the devastation, she had experienced community strength.

“It’s so humbling, even in the face of a disaster such as this, the manaakitanga that we have been shown is next level.

“One of the first things that happened when we arrived is people coming out of their houses to give us cups of tea.

“They are a very strong and calm culture.”

Steph Rotarangi is a former chief executive of Napier City Council and has a background in fire and emergency management. Photo / NZME

Rotarangi has been a volunteer with Taskforce Kiwi since its founding in 2022.

She led a team to Hawaii after the 2024 Lahaina wildfires.

She brings vast experience from her career with Fire and Emergency New Zealand, and her time in Australia as chief fire officer and deputy emergency management commissioner for Victoria. She was also deputy chief fire officer for the state’s Country Fire Authority.

“Honestly, like every New Zealander that was watching the footage [from Nepal] that we saw, we just felt that we needed to be able to offer assistance.

“At any time in New Zealand we could have our own disasters, so the international connections that we make by doing this sort of work teach us new things and they help us potentially have a wider network of people to work with when, if we need it in Aotearoa.”

Conditions remain difficult in the affected areas, with damaged infrastructure limiting material aid reaching thousands of displaced people.

Michaela Gower joined Hawke’s Bay Today in 2023 and is based in the Hastings newsroom. She covers Dannevirke and Hawke’s Bay news and loves sharing stories about farming and rural communities.