Climate Change

[ysabetwordsmith]

Recently a large piece of glacier broke off and triggered a landslide that turned into a tsunami-like debris flow which scoured mountain valleys, wiping away villages, roads, bridges, people -- everything in its path.


This video shows footage of the event and its aftermath.

Disturbing footage shows moment deadly flash floods hit Nepal

At least 160 people are dead, and more than 400 are missing after devastating flash floods in Nepal. These videos capture the moment a mudslide struck near the Nepal-China border, the destruction caused by the floods and rescue efforts.


This one talks about what happened and why.

A Wall of Water Hit Nepal With No Rain Here's What Actually Fell

On the morning of August 26, 2026, a wall of water and debris surged through the mountainous border between Nepal and Tibet. There was no rainstorm. No warning. No slowly rising river. Just a near-vertical wall appearing in the valley within minutes. Over 270 people are confirmed dead. Nearly 1,500 are still missing, including hundreds of foreign tourists.

But what most reports haven't explained is this: the Nepal flood wasn't actually a flood in the way most people think. It was a mountain progressively turning itself into one.

In this video, we break down the extraordinary chain of events behind the disaster — from the moment a section of glacier detached at 5,200 metres of elevation, to the rock-ice avalanche that fell over a kilometre down the mountainside, to the process called "entrainment" that transformed it into a fast-moving debris flow tens of kilometres downstream. We'll explain why the USGS initially recorded it as a magnitude 4.4 earthquake, why the surge looked so much like a tsunami but wasn't, and why almost no one downstream received any warning.

This is the story of what actually fell that morning — and why the same thing is likely to happen again.

Current flood warning systems are designed to detect rain-caused threats, even when the rain falls far upslope, and they are now quite good at that. They are not designed to alert to glacier-caused events, and completely failed.

The problem is this is going to keep happening as Earth's glaciers melt away. (The only way to slow that is emission reduction to fight climate change, but doing that now is a day late and a dollar short.) A lot of them are up in mountains, and those mountains are above valleys where people live. Therefore, we need a new and widespread warning system to monitor glaciers for the kind of calving that can trigger such destructive flows. Even a few minutes of warning could save lives -- though sadly, not the infrastructure in the valleys.

As another precaution, it would be prudent to examine landscapes for places where a melting glacier lies upstream of settlements and other infrastructure. Remove as much as you can before the debris flow happens. I do not advocate forcing people out of their homes, but warning them of the danger and offering help with relocation would be advisable.

This looks like mountain valleys could become another case of environmental foreclosure, for entirely different reasons than previous examples of drought or coastline collapse. :/


EDIT 8/28/26 -- A new danger may be growing due to an unstable glacial lake filling behind a flimsy dam. This could easily release another flood as people are struggling to recover from the first.

Race to get aid into Nepal and Tibet amid warnings flood lake could burst


How You Can Help

Do you have favorite charities that deal with global disasters? If so, check their response; they may have a donation page for this specific incident. If not, look for lists of responding groups and research to find reliable ones.

How to help after Nepal and Tibet's catastrophic floods

How people can help Nepal’s flood-affected communities -- Asia News Network

Nepal Flood Relief: How to Give Wisely and Support Trusted Charities


Religion in Nepal is primarily Hindu with a significant Buddhist minority, among others. Religion in Tibet is primarily Tibetan Buddhist along with Bon and folk minorities. If you are familiar with any of these faiths, you can pitch in with their traditional prayers, as there are a lot of distressed souls right now and the usual clergy are overloaded caring for both the dead and the living.

A Buddhist Guide to Death, Dying and Suffering

Hindu Funeral Prayers

What Is Loving-Kindness Meditation? (Incl. 4 Metta Scripts)
 

Comments

[siliconshaman]

This is not the first time it's happened, in fact the largest flood recorded (well, we have evidence of, no-one was around to see it happen) was at the end of the last ice age, when the glacial sheet covering Canada and a fair bit of the Northern US collapsed. It started as glacial collapse, much like this one, in the Rockies, which hit the vast Inland sea held back by the glacial Ice Dam about where the great lakes are now.

The 'tsunami' (for lack of better name) burst the dam...and triggered the largest flood in recent history, completely emptying out a kilometre deep fresh water sea that covered a third of the North American continent in about 23 days. (and scouring out the Great lakes)

There's no way of knowing if there were human settlements in area before... but it's for damn sure there weren't any after.

[conuly]

well, we have evidence of, no-one was around to see it happen

Goodness, I hope nobody was around to see it happen!

[siliconshaman]

Agreed, because if they were they wouldn't be in any fit state to tell anyone about it afterwards...

Except now that I think about it, maybe they were. After all, we have legends about Atlantis and Great Floods..The celts recorded that the Tuatha came from the west of Ireland, across the Great Ocean. Describing them as tall, pale skinned and red haired. The red hair gene in those of Irish descent is entirely unrelated to any similar gene in European gene pools (except for those that mingled with those of Irish decent)

So, who knows, maybe there was an existent Ice-Age population at the time, a few of whom survived and made their way West across the Atlantic.

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

In fact, humans have survived a number of cataclysmic events including floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc. Many stories tell of a disaster ending with "... and I alone survived."

Why the repetition? Because until the last few thousand years, most people lived in small groups that often had individuals or smaller teams going out to hunt or gather or scout. It's not hard to figure that one or two people might happen to be on the far edge of camp, looking down as it was obliterated. :(

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> This is not the first time it's happened <<

True. What concerns me is that 1) it's likely to repeat increasingly as highland glaciers melt, 2) alpine valleys often have people in them, and 3) the current warning systems are insufficient. That indicates a need for prompt action to minimize future deaths.

>>It started as glacial collapse, much like this one, in the Rockies, which hit the vast Inland sea held back by the glacial Ice Dam about where the great lakes are now.<<

I've read about that.

>>There's no way of knowing if there were human settlements in area before... but it's for damn sure there weren't any after.<<

That depends on where they were. Any close to the initial area would be inundated quickly. So would many low-lying ones in general, and lots of people like to live near water, so more people live in low areas than in high areas. But some have always been mountain folks. Also, wherever the water did pour into a low area of any kind -- several states have a "basin" region -- it would have to wait for that to fill and overflow. That kind of delay would give some distant people time to flee.

Another factor is whether anyone had watercraft. Some of the more recent hypotheses suggest coast-hopping instead of or in addition to the Beringia crossing. Anywhere the water had spread out enough to rise more slowly instead of arriving as a 50-foot wall of doom could have given people time to hop in a canoe or raft and simply ride out the rise to wash up somewhere else.

Of course, surviving that kind of displacement with a continental ecosystem bashed to hell is a different story.

*ponder* And there is some evidence of multiple waves of migration, not all of which leave clear descendants in the available records.

[kengr]

The Missoula Floods. Not just the Great Lakes. The westward flows created the scablands in eastern Oregon and Washington.

Spokane,Washington is built on sandbars laid down then. I used to live on one of them. 500 foot slope down to the Spokane river. At the top, flat land for several miles. Then a 300 foot slope to more flat land. My schools (grade school, junior high and high school were all up there.

Across the river from us was an interesting formation that I didn't know about until a visit back home in 70s. There'd been a forest fire, so you could see the underlying structure that'd been hidden by the trees.

Three layers. slope up from river (say 50 feet), flat for a few hundred feet, another slope up another flat ring, another slope and then a final flat top.

Sort of like a huge wedding cake.

Wow!

[ysabetwordsmith]

That sounds like an amazing place.

[conuly]

I saw footage at work and I thought it looked like a dam had burst.

[siliconshaman]

In effect, it had.

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

The pattern shown was indeed quite similar to known cases of a glacial dam bursting. That's also likely to occur in the future. So is the possibility of a glacial event impacting and bursting a manmade dam.

[tamena]

I saw a few clips and was trying to figure out what movie it was
so heart breaking

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

It did look like movie scenes.

[siliconshaman]

Follow up... apparently it might not be entirely over. There's a glacial lake left hanging with a precariously thin rim and filling up. link

O_O

[ysabetwordsmith]

Yikes. Thanks for the update. I have added this and some other resources.

[conuly]

Oh no.