Joanna Lumley joins Blackheath vigil for Nepal flood victims

Dame Joanna Lumley has shared her belief that the "heartbreaking" flash flood in Nepal was caused by human behaviour and climate change, as she joined a vigil in south-east London to remember the victims.

About 50 people gathered at Panas Gurkha Restaurant in Blackheath on Thursday to observe a minute's silence, light candles and hold prayers.

The actress, who has frequently visited Nepal and has strong ties with the Gurkha community, said the flood in the north of the country on 26 August could have been predicted.

Nepal's foreign ministry said 1,252 deaths had been recorded since the flood and 4,200 people remained missing, including 590 foreign nationals.

On Tuesday, Foreign Office minister Lord Wood of Anfield told the House of Lords that 36 British people were currently unaccounted for, up from the previous total of 33.

During the vigil, Dame Joanna said: "I think... around the world our hearts have been absolutely broken by what happened in Nepal.

"The sense that it could have maybe been predicted by all the people who understood that by human activities somehow the world seems to be changing, seems to be getting warmer.

"These catastrophes, the great Himalayan glaciers melting, isn't something that we haven't heard of and thought of before.

"When you see the catastrophic outcome, I think we feel completely hopeless every day we look in the papers."

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) said a magnitude 5.2 seismic event struck near the border between Nepal and China.

It added that a "glacial collapse and debris flow" caused "subsequent catastrophic impacts downstream".

Rescue efforts had previously been hampered by fears of more flooding from a lake formed by the glacier collapse which sparked the flooding.

Dame Joanna said having visited and travelled in the country, "it breaks my heart because I know how difficult it is to get around".

"It seems that we have been warned about this over the years," she added.

"I do believe that what we do here, and the fossil fuels we burn and the plastic waste in the sea and so on, I do believe that is making the world a sicker place and a weaker place.

"And the places which are melting fastest are the high mountains and places, and so the Himalayas are there."

Dame Joanna is the patron of healthcare charity Doctors for Nepal and vice patron of The Gurkha Welfare Trust, which provides aid to Gurkha veterans who served in the British Army.

Her father served in the 6th Gurkha Rifles, a regiment of the British Indian Army, during the Second World War.

Vice Lord-Lieutenant Colonel Jane Davis, former Coronation Street star Sally Lindsay, drummer Steve White and Greenwich mayor David Wardrop also joined the vigil.

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