Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Friday clarified his use of the word "drama" in a social media post about the devastating flash floods in Nepal, saying he used it to describe a situation involving "intensely clashing forces" and not to diminish the scale of the tragedy.
Tharoor, who had travelled to Kathmandu, wrote on X on Thursday that he had arrived "blissfully unaware of the drama" that had taken place in the hills and caused catastrophic damage. He described the flash flood in northern Nepal's Rasuwa district near the Tibet border and said global warming and/or an earthquake in Tibet may have caused a large chunk of a glacier to break off and fall into the valley.
The use of "drama" drew criticism online, prompting Tharoor to explain his choice of word.
"For all those fulminating in outrage about my use of the word 'drama' in my first tweet from Nepal, the word does not only mean something theatrical," Tharoor wrote on Friday. He cited another dictionary definition describing drama as "a state, situation or series of events involving intensely clashing forces".
"That's the sense in which I intended it," he said, while adding that he regretted choosing a word that could be easily misinterpreted.
The death toll from the Nepal floods has risen to 469, with more than 1,000 people still missing. Rescue teams are using heavy machinery, helicopters and sniffer dogs to search through mud and debris for survivors and missing people.
Damaged roads and bridges, along with difficult terrain, have hampered access to some of the worst-hit areas. Authorities are also racing to rescue around 100 people trapped inside a tunnel at a hydropower project that was inundated by the floods two days ago.