Dr Balaji Balagani

What happened? 1. 🧊 Glacier collapse: A large portion of a glacier in the Himalayan region broke away and fell into a steep valley. 2. 🪨 Ice + rock + debris: The collapse generated a huge debris flow containing ice, rocks, sediment and water. 3. 🌊 Sudden river surge: This rapidly increased the flow in the Lhende/Bhote Koshi river system, producing a powerful flash flood downstream. 4. ⛰️ Steep Himalayan terrain: Nepal's steep valleys allow enormous volumes of water and debris to travel very rapidly, making flash floods particularly destructive. 5. 🌡️ Climate change may contribute: Himalayan glaciers are retreating and thinning with rising temperatures, potentially making glacier slopes and glacial lakes more unstable. However, the exact contribution of climate change to this particular collapse is still being investigated. Important: The seismic signal initially led to reports of an earthquake, but subsequent analysis indicated that it was generated by the glacial collapse and resulting debris flow, not a conventional earthquake. More generally, Nepal is highly flood-prone because of monsoon rainfall, cloudbursts, landslides, snow/glacier melt, glacial-lake outburst floods (GLOFs), and landslide-dammed rivers. #Nepalfloods #nepal #floods

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