The death toll from the devastating flood in northern Nepal has risen to 353. Local police updated the data after the disaster that occurred on Wednesday on the border with Chinese Tibet. Authorities also reported more than 1,300 missing.
Among the missing, at least 800 are believed to be foreigners who were in the region for hiking or pilgrimage to a site sacred to Hindus. Experts believe the most likely cause of the disaster was a glacier collapse, which caused a sudden large-scale flood in the border area.
Scale of destruction
Video recordings of the events show how huge flows of mud and debris engulfed buildings and everything in their path. The flow easily swept away buses and cars. Hundreds of people fled in panic in search of shelter from the sudden flow of water.
According to scientists, including Simon Cox, head of the “From Mountains to Sea” program at Earth Sciences New Zealand, climate change may have created conditions for the destabilization of high-altitude rocks and ice.
“This, in turn, makes landslides and cascading hazards, similar to those observed this week, more frequent”, he said.
What could have caused the disaster
The exact cause of the disaster, which occurred early Wednesday morning, is still being determined. Meanwhile, scientists suggest it may have started with a massive avalanche of ice and rocks on the northern slopes of the Nepalese peak Langtang Lirung. The mass of ice and debris fell into the Lhende Hola river on the Tibetan side of the border.
The initial collapse triggered a cross-border chain of hazardous events. As a result, at least six major hydroelectric plants and the infrastructure of a shopping center in the port of Gyirong were damaged. River courses were also altered more than 100 kilometers from the site of the initial collapse, near the border with India.
According to Benjamin Horton, dean of the School of Energy and Environment at the City University of Hong Kong, such disasters can be an example of the so-called “compound event.” This refers to situations where several natural factors, including earthquakes, loss of glaciers, melting of permafrost, and slope instability, interact with each other, creating a more complex and destructive disaster than each of these factors individually.
Agencies: AFP, AP and Reuters. Photo: AP and AFP. Photo editing: Fernanda Corbani.
