Climate Change Led to Nepal Landslide, Scientists Find
Researchers said warming temperatures, glacier retreat and thawing permafrost destabilized the slope, while nearly 1,400 people died and more than 5,000 remain missing.
- On Thursday, scientists confirmed climate change was a core factor in last month's glacial mountain collapse on the China-Nepal border that killed nearly 1,400 people and left at least 6,600 missing.
- Rising temperatures driven by fossil fuels have thinned glaciers and thawed permafrost in the Himalayas for decades, stripping away the ice that supported the rock wall and destabilizing the mountainside.
- "This was not a single trigger event," mountain hydrologist Walter Immerzeel of Utrecht University told reporters, describing the disaster as a "compound crisis" involving multiple processes acting over decades.
- Nepal estimates reconstruction costs at $4.78 billion, while disaster authorities revised the number of missing to 6,150, noting that such cascading events exceed current adaptation limits.
- Prime Minister Balendra Shah will address the UN General Assembly next week on the urgent crisis, as Friederike Otto, professor of climate science at Imperial College London, warned that without faster fossil fuel transitions, similar disasters will inevitably occur.
13 Articles
13 Articles
Climate change likely to have helped trigger Nepal glacier collapse, scientists say - Regional Media News
SINGAPORE, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Climate change is highly likely to have contributed to the catastrophic glacier collapse that flooded parts of Nepal and Tibet in late August, killing around 1,400 people and leaving thousands still missing, scientists said on Thursday. Rapidly warming temperatures in [...]
CNBC-TV18
Times of India'No doubt' of climate change role in deadly China-Nepal flood: scientists
Climate change caused a deadly glacial mountain collapse on the China-Nepal border, killing 1,446 and leaving 6,669 missing. Scientists cite long-term warming, glacier retreat, and permafrost thaw as
Climate change led to Nepal landslide, scientists find
Climate change contributed to the conditions that led to last month's catastrophic rock and ice collapse on Nepal's northern border by thinning glaciers and thawing the frozen ground that helped hold the mountain together, scientists have concluded.
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