Climate Change Boosted Risk of Devastating Himalayan Flood, Experts Say
Scientists say warming and glacier loss are making Himalayan rock and ice collapses more likely, with one disaster killing 165 people.
- Authorities reported on Aug 27 that nearly 1,500 people are missing, including at least 800 foreigners, after a massive Himalayan rock and mud avalanche killed 165 people.
- Climate change destabilizes high-mountain rock and ice, and rising temperatures weaken mountainsides by reducing ice support and increasing meltwater, making large collapses more likely.
- The avalanche damaged at least six major hydropower plants and Gyirong Port infrastructure, altered river channels more than 62 miles downstream, and Nepal's glaciers melted 65% faster in the prior decade than the preceding one.
- Benjamin Horton, dean of the School of Energy and Environment at the City University of Hong Kong, called the disaster a "compound event" where earthquakes interact with climate-driven changes to "create a more complex and damaging disaster than would occur from any one factor alone."
- Similar catastrophic surges have convulsed the Hindu Kush range in recent years, including a glacial lake outburst in Thame in 2024 and a 2023 flood in Sikkim, prompting experts to warn that understanding cascading risks is essential for regional resilience.
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Climate change boosted risk of devastating Himalayan flood: Experts - The Tribune
Climate change is leading to conditions that can destabilise high-mountain rock and ice, strengthening prospects for disasters such as this week’s Himalayan flood along the border between Nepal and China’s Tibet that killed 165, scientists say. At least 800 foreigners are among the nearly 1,500 missing, authorities said on Thursday, a day after a massive […]
Climate Change Boosted Risk Of Devastating Nepal Flood: Experts
While the exact cause of Wednesday's disaster is still being analysed, scientists say it probably began with a massive ice-rock avalanche on the northern slopes of Nepal's Langtang Lirung peak into the Lhende Khola river on the Tibetan side.
Similar accidents can be expected in the future if climate change cannot be curbed, says the professor of geodynamics.
Climate change boosted risk of devastating Himalayan flood, experts say
HONG KONG, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Climate change is leading to conditions that can destabilise high-mountain rock and ice, strengthening prospects for disasters such as this week's Himalayan flood along the border between Nepal and China's Tibet that kille...
Algemeen Dagblad
An ice and rock avalanche from a glacier on the northern side of the Himalayas is likely the cause of the flash flood in the border region between China (Tibet) and Nepal. This is according to Walter Immerzeel, a professor of mountain hydrology specializing in climate change in the Himalayas. "The ice that holds rocks together like cement is melting increasingly fast."
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