Nepal glacier collapse kills hundreds

A wall of ice, rock, and mud surged through Nepal's Rasuwa, Nuwakot, and Dhading districts this week, killing hundreds. The disaster began when part of a mountainside and a glacier on Langtang Lirung, a 7,000-meter peak on the Nepal-Tibet border, gave way.

A lake formed by the initial landslide has begun overflowing, triggering fresh panic. The death toll stands at 538 in Nepal and five in Tibet, according to authorities. The Red Cross states more than 90,000 people have been directly affected and are in urgent need of help, warning the crisis is still unfolding.

Jeffrey Kargel, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, calculated the flow covered its first 22 kilometers at an average speed of 193 kilometers per hour, reaching the valley floor in under seven minutes. Rivers in the affected valleys reportedly rose by as much as nine meters in half an hour.

Rapid Warming Destabilizes Mountains

The mountains around the Langtang valley are warming at an exceptional rate. Research led by Bethan Davies, chair in glaciology at Newcastle University, indicates land above 4,000 meters in the Langtang catchment has warmed at roughly five times the global average since the 1960s, with that trend sharpening further over the past decade.

Davies tells The Independent that as snow and ice disappear, they expose darker rock which absorbs more heat, warming the mountain even faster. Ella Gilbert, a climate scientist at the British Antarctic Survey, notes the rate of ice loss from glaciers across the wider Himalayan region has doubled since 2000.

"We know that climate heating is destabilising glaciers in the Himalaya," Gilbert says. "When glacier stability is undermined, sudden failures can occur, leading to horrible incidents like this one." Davies points to the thawing of permafrost, ground that normally stays frozen year-round. "Permafrost is like the 'glue' that holds rocks together," she says. As it melts, steep slopes become less stable.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states with high confidence that declining glaciers, snow, and permafrost are already destabilizing mountain regions worldwide, making events like this collapse more likely as warming continues. However, experts are not definitively connecting this specific disaster to climate change yet.

"We don't know exactly what happened here," Dr. Gilbert says, "but it's likely that some combination of these factors was at play, and we know that all of these are enhanced by climate change." She adds that reports of unusually warm, dry conditions and low snow cover in the area are consistent with patterns seen before a major glacier collapse.

Challenges for Early Warning Systems

Why some communities had time to escape and others did not has become a central question. Hannah Cloke, professor of meteorology and climate science at the University of Reading, says the disaster unfolded across three distinct zones.

Closest to the source, floodwaters arrived within minutes, leaving little chance for warning. Further downstream, Nepal's forecasting authorities issued warnings several hours in advance, which officials say saved many hundreds of lives. The hardest zone lay in between, where a flood struck under clear skies with no rain to signal danger.

"For many, a flood is something that follows a storm," Dr. Cloke says. "When a warning describes a threat that does not match people's mental picture of danger, it can be easy to dismiss."

The physical unpredictability compounded the problem. Fatima Pillosu, a hydrometeorologist at the University of Reading, said debris formed a barrier lake, a natural dam with no spillway or solid core. "The exact moment of failure cannot be predicted, because it depends on the internal structure of the dam," she says. This is why the same lake now threatens a second wave of flooding.

Jeff Da Costa, a researcher in hydrometeorological hazards at the University of Reading, says the risk was worsened by a known gap in cross-border cooperation. After a flood on the same river last year, Nepal’s officials reported receiving no advance warning from China, with no formal mechanism for sharing such information.

Nepal subsequently committed to strengthening coordination. "This is a transboundary river system, and information about the barrier lake is being shared between China and Nepal," Da Costa says. "Observations upstream can give people downstream valuable time, but they become useful when they are connected to modelling, warnings and practical decisions on the ground."

A Question of Climate Justice

The disaster has reopened arguments about climate justice. Nepal produces less than 0.1 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions driving global warming, yet is ranked as one of the most vulnerable countries to climate-related disasters.

"This is the reality: those who have contributed the least are paying the highest price, especially with their lives," says Savio Carvalho of the campaign group 350.org. He says wealthier countries have a duty to help fund disaster preparedness, pointing to well-resourced early warning systems in the Alps as an example of what Nepal lacks.

"If only Nepal had good technology, like the Swiss or Italians do for the Alps, they could have had better forecasting mechanisms," he said. He also called for taxes on fossil fuel companies' windfall profits to help pay for the response.

Carvalho says the economic damage extends far beyond the disaster zone. Rasuwa sits on a major trekking and pilgrimage route, and tourism supports many in Nepal. "Most of these communities, unlike many parts of the global north, have no state protections like unemployment allowances," he said. He added that destroyed hydropower plants, bridges, power lines, and roads compound the damage.

He said existing international funds meant to help countries cope remain inadequate and hard to access, often arriving as loans that leave poorer countries deeper in debt. Sudarshan Neupane, WaterAid Nepal's country director who grew up in Rasuwa, says damage to water and sanitation systems needs urgent attention to protect public health. WaterAid has called on the UK government to restore its aid budget to 0.7 percent of national income to support the response.